Honda goes Iberian for dealer conference event

For 2025, Honda UK took a different approach for its annual dealer conference. Instead of the usual off-season golf hotel or conference centre in the Midlands, the company organised an active event, featuring an overseas trip to Portugal and a comprehensive program of new model demonstration rides.

“The 2025 Kick-Off meeting with dealers took place in Portugal in early February,” a Honda spokesperson explained to BDN. “Rather than a standard UK hotel-based conference, we wanted to make it a dynamic event where dealers had the opportunity to ride a number of our key new machines, including the CB1000 Hornet SP, GB350S, NC750X and XL750 Transalp.

“In the end, we took out two groups, starting with 25 sales managers on the Monday to Wednesday so they could learn about and ride the new models. The second group comprised dealer principals and Honda UK staff from Tuesday to Thursday (circa 100 in total), where they could learn about and ride the new models as well as attend our 2025 dealer Kick-Off meeting.”

There was some big news announced at the conference. Neil Fletcher, UK head of motorcycles, is moving to another role in Honda Europe, setting up a new department with a focus on the various racing programmes across the UK and continental Europe. His replacement is a man well-known to the Honda dealer network and the wider trade; development and business planning manager Andy Mineyko, who’s been working directly with Fletcher for the past few years. Mineyko’s been at Honda for 20 years, starting as an area manager and working his way up with stints at Honda Europe and the Honda car division before moving back into bikes. He’ll take over as UK head of motorcycles from Neil Fletcher in April.

No dealer conference is complete without an awards ceremony, and Honda handed out a heap of gongs to the best dealers in the network. Highlights included Doble Motorcycles of Coulsdon, marking 50 years as a Honda dealer, while Bransons Motorcycles of Yeovil celebrated 45 years, and Grantham Honda received a 20-year award.

Unfortunately, Miles Kingsport, which won the top Dealer of the Year prize, couldn’t attend as the company and staff were all right in the middle of building work, making their showroom an official Honda ‘Dream Dealer’. However, Andy Kirkup, Miles Kingsport MD, sent a message of thanks: “Apologies we are unable to attend the Dealer Conference. This is due to preparations for the Dream installation in the dealership this month. We are all really pleased we are Dealer of the Year. It’s a team effort across all departments of our business to get to this standard. Thank you to all the team at Honda UK. The support offered by all is really appreciated. Along with great campaigns and an excellent model line-up, we look forward to a successful year. We are very excited to be implementing the Dream concept in the dealership and believe it will enhance the customer experience further.”