Hotels are very popular places for meetings for a variety of reasons – they are usually in strategic locations, easily accessible, customer focused, and can offer various levels of privacy depending on the customer’s needs amongst others. If you are charged with organising a meeting at a hotel, there will be a few considerations you will want to think about beforehand, and we shall take a look at some below.
Purpose of the meeting
If the goal of the meeting is to focus and come up with new ideas, then a hotel with many distractions such as extensive bars and spas may not be ideal. However, if the goal is team building or a reward for great results, then such a place may be suitable. Meetings that require a lot of technological connectivity could also help determine the hotel you choose. Rural hotels tend to have less reliability and quality when it comes to internet connection, compared to those in cities, and this could be a deal breaker if your meeting will be relying on this. Having a hotel with a conference room display system instead of a physical scheduling book, for example, could be an accurate indication of the quality of the hotel, and whether it could handle the purpose of your meeting.
Location
This is usually one of the most important considerations to make. Where will your attendees be coming from? If they need to take flights in, you may want to consider a hotel near the airport to reduce their travelling. If it is in the city, somewhere easily accessible by public transport or taxis would be ideal. Location in many aspects of business is key, and this is no different. Assess what the needs of your attendees are first and work from there to find the ideal location.
Communication with the hotel
Being assigned a point of contact when choosing a hotel is often very important, especially for building a professional relationship and understanding. Often, it is never as simple as booking a suite online; it often requires a lot of toing-and-froing in order to ensure that everyone is on the same page about what is expected. All this depends on your needs, but usually a hotel that assigns you a liaison to attend to your needs should be held in much higher regard.
Adaptive spaces
There are many types of meetings with different requirements, from capacity to the seating layout and differing technical specifications, so a hotel that is able to pivot and adapt their spaces to these is a winner. Often with the best hotels, you will get large halls or outdoor areas that can be customised to suit your meeting’s needs, even at short notice.
