Ending Meeting Madness

By Francine Cohen
Article source
http://www.hotelinteractive.com/index.asp?page_id=5000&article_id=10193

An email message just popped up outlining the details on the dreaded annual meeting which used to mean being cooped up in a bone dry, overheated, windowless boardroom where you struggled to keep your eyes open and your mind stimulated by more than a repetitive counting of the soundproofing tiles in the ceiling above your boss’s head. But this year’s meeting looks a whole lot more promising. What’s going on?

Welcome to the world of smarter meetings where meeting planners and their hotel conference department counterparts are working to create meeting and event environments that foster creativity and encourage open dialogue so that business objectives are met and even exceeded. Every element of the meeting experience, from furniture to décor, lighting, food, a/v and even architectural design is being touched in this new effort to create a memorable and productive experience. No longer are meeting planners forced to book their group at a hotel that only offers a standard meeting package. Now a number of hoteliers are offering supremely customized options that are tailored to the size, attendees, and purpose of every meeting. Successful meetings boil down to options and communication from the beginning of the sales process. Says Caryn Kaboudi, Director of Public Relations for Omni Hotels, “It really should be who is going to be there, what kind of people they are, what is your leader like, what works for him/her, understanding the customer and having the good old fashioned dialogue.”

A dialogue has been ongoing at Omni, where roughly 50 percent of their revenue comes from meetings. They realized that the day of sterile ballroom meeting environments is over and created a new brand wide meeting concept, dubbed Sensational Meetings. Designed to touch all the senses the introduction of this meeting program initially showcases three approaches: Energetic Meetings – where the environment created by vibrant, high-energy colors and stimulating flavors is favorable for brainstorming, planning and training; Challenging Meetings – a relaxed environment where lower lighting, green tea and soothing music is employed to mitigate the stressful points of discussion; and Recognition Meetings – where upbeat music, vibrant floral design, decadent champagne truffles and stimulating scent are put to use for meetings designed to honor past successes and build on them for the future. Kboudi notes, “Beyond coordinating dates, race, and space we want to partner with them to make meetings more successful. We think we are revolutionizing the meetings business.”

An environmentally conscious revolution is underway at boutique hotelier Kimpton. Kimpton Hotels leverages their boutique size to address every need of their clients while promoting their core beliefs of corporate responsibility and encouraging meeting partners to join in the effort. Great Meetings, Great Causes meetings are a natural extension of Kimpton’s EarthCare program. Great Meetings was created to allow businesses the opportunity to extend environmental responsibility into their meetings. Companies are offered a variety of options for conserving resources, reducing waste, recycling, making donations, and educating event attendees on the benefits of environmental responsibility. It all happens without a lot of fuss as organic foods and beverages are served on china, eliminating all paper products, decorations are made of eco-friendly materials, recycling bins are placed throughout the space and event materials are printed on recycled paper, using soy based inks. Jesse Suglia, Corporate Director of Hotel Sales Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, notes why so many companies are excited about this and comments, “They love it. Whether it is on the managed travel side or on the meetings side corporations are seeing the opportunity to reduce their impact on the planet. They are looking for solutions and it is seamless and integrates quickly.”

Integrating comfortable furnishings, soothing lighting, and great architectural design are how many hotels are upping the ante. At the Conrad Miami General Manager Robert Thrailkill notes, “Every one of our rooms has natural light for meetings – there are no air walls. Air walls make lousy meeting rooms.” The Conrad focuses on a serene environment by keeping extraneous furniture to a minimum and offering the best seat in town. Thrailkill boasts, “We built in buffets so we don’t roll anything into the room. And I’m the only one in this market place who can do a meeting for 150 people in ergonomic chairs.” In the competitive Chicago market the newly opened Hotel Sax has created an environment without right angles. Adam Kaplan, Director of Sales and Marketing, explains, “There are actually a couple of right angles, but we tried to zig where everyone else zags. We were starting from raw space which had never been developed and decided to design the space from the ground up to be inspiring for people who will appreciate it when they get together. It’s these spaces with the right environment, lighting and technology that people are really responding to. The technology is such that each room has a flat plasma or drop down HD projection screen and the colors and furniture and the sweeping angles of some of the rooms are meant to put you in a different perspective than you’d get in a traditional hotel meeting room.”

To catch up with attendees’ fine dining expectations meeting food is getting an overhaul and menus are designed to encourage day long productivity. Suglia remarks, “Attendees are becoming more sophisticated. They are looking for a culinary experience whether they are in a meeting room or our restaurants. The palate is important.” At Hotel Sax all F&B needs are met by the award winning in-house restaurant, Bin 36. Kaplan adds, “Food and catering – that’s an area where there’s quite a bit of flexibility. Bin 36 is known for their wines and cheese and their New American cuisine with French influences. It’s a fabulous selection of wines, cheeses, and entrees that have a unique feel to them and it can get decadent. It doesn’t necessarily feel like a hotel driven menu.” At Omni they relied on the experts at the Culinary Institute of America for guidance with their catering menus. Kboudi explains, “We sat down last fall with CIA and they helped us really understand the right ingredients to use at the right times and how to put those together. We already knew, for instance, that you don’t serve a lot of carbs at lunch if you wanted to brainstorm in the afternoon and that you shouldn’t keep running caffeine all day but CIA really offered the food sciences part of it. We are at the process now creating menus they’ve helped us develop. Every hotel will have some customization and pricing depending on how they procure food product.”

At Fairmont DC they know that sourcing local food products, like cheese from nearby farms, is important but it also goes well beyond the food. Bob Mikolitch, Director of Catering, puts a lot of emphasis on creating the right setting through green, creative décor to add to the success of a meeting. He explains, “Normally people are looking for the typical continental breakfast or break-out. We’ve all seen the boring break but here we create an attractive organic look. We use texture like a wicker mat, buckets of fresh grown grass, and large pieces of granite or river rock. We work with the Executive Chef at Fairmont to create a “green” break that is appealing to the senses. We try to equate green and eco as being healthier and hope that the meeting experience ends up leaving you feeling better than when you walked into the room.”

The best meetings at the Hilton Bella Harbor in Rockwall, Texas don’t even take place in a meeting room Here conference attendees focused on team building are invited to board The Sea Wolf, a 50-passenger, 40 x 25’ handmade wooden catamaran. The conference center’s exclusive “Sailing into the Future” executive training program includes: nautical assessment (common goals), raising the sails (plan execution), sail trim and steering (optimizing productivity), reading the wind (external factors) and docking the boat (project completion). Jennifer Wasserman, Hilton Bella Harbor’s Director of Sales and Marketing explains, “The boat seats up to 50 at a time. Part of the meeting is in a classroom, the other part is on the boat. When you are maneuvering a sailboat you have to rely on people to make that boat go. It is critical to show how important each person is in order to do that. The boat is a giant symbol for your business.”

A successful business can evidently happen on land or on the sea, just as long as it moves beyond the long accepted method of seating people around a boardroom table and boring them to death.