The BBC has sent 50 of its employees on an all-expenses-paid trip to attend a conference in Amsterdam in a decision which has raised fresh concerns about its use of licence-payers' money.

At least a dozen senior BBC managers who are on the trip to the Dutch capital are staying in five-star hotels in rooms that are costing the corporation £260 a night each.

Many of those on the trip, which is thought to have cost tens of thousands of poundswork for BBC Technology, the corporation's internet and new media division. It announced earlier this year that it was making 100 staff redundant because of cash shortages. ,

The same division is already subject to a review, ordered by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, after some of its commercial rivals claimed that it was receiving too much public money.

The BBC has defended its expenditure on the junket, saying that its staff are in the city for the annual International Broadcasting Convention, which began on Thursday and runs until Tuesday. The corporation adds that the trip is an ideal opportunity for staff to network with colleagues from other leading broadcasters from around the world.

Critics, however, have questioned the need to send so many staff and to put them up in such expensive hotels.

Among those participating are all 16 of BBC Technology's board members. The presence of so many senior staff meant that the division's annual board meeting, which took place on Friday, had to be held in a Dutch hotel rather than at Television Centre in London. At least 12 staff are staying in the Grand Amsterdam hotel, which offers five-star accommodation, and which is situated close to the city's Dam Square and Royal Palace.

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[John Whittingdale, the Conservative culture spokesman,] added: "The way the BBC is funded means that there is no incentive for the corporation to examine what is the most cost-effective way of doing things. The incentive to try and minimise costs and do the right thing by the viewer is negligible.