The Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre Catering Department received the highest score out of all of the competing conference centers, earning the 2006 International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) Apex Award for Worlds Best Congress Centre.

The award is based entirely on customer satisfaction and 2006 marked the third year the AECC has qualified for this award.

The AIPC Apex Award is presented annually on the basis of performance and customer satisfaction analysis.

An independent "blind" evaluation process guarantees an objective analysis of the data which addresses several factors including: congress facilities, project management, catering and technical capabilities.

Because the AIPC Apex Award winner is decided through surveys of international meeting professionals, who are qualified to compare the performance of facilities from many different parts of the world, the AECC winning the award represents a true international standard of excellence.

“We are delighted that in the category measuring the overall performance of the AECC, the Concluding Evaluation of the Congress Centre category (i.e. the overall appropriateness of the congress center and if the client would recommend the center to a business associate) the AECC was awarded full marks scoring an equal first with the winner of the overall award, Québec City Conference Centre, and the Palexco Congress Centre in Spain and Cairns Convention Centre, Australia, said Brian Horsburgh, AECC’s Director of Sales & Marketing.”

“We believe that clients from around the world will find that AECC can compete for any international business and offer clients world class service.”

Unlike many other conference centers, the AECC handles all catering in-house and on-site by AECC’s own strategically picked team. The decision by AECC to have an in-house catering team was to enable AECC to provide first class service to clients such as being able to respond quickly to any last minute changes and being able to monitor closely and have strict control over the standard of quality of the final product including the supply of ingredients.

The Center itself also received high marks in the Congress Building and Suitability of Exhibition Space Accompanying your Congress Event categories.

Prior to redeveloping the Center a few years ago, extensive research was undertaken to understand the needs of conference organizers today, such as a large number of breakout rooms located closely to the main halls and flexibility of rooms. This ensured that the new AECC was designed to meet their customers needs.

Another area that AECC excels in is their AV/IT capabilities. The AECC invested heavily, and continues to invest, in lighting and sound equipment as well as in the training of its four in-house, multi- skilled technicians.