1. First Impression – The hotel will usually ask to know your arrival time at the hotel or may even offer to pick you up. They like to control the arrival experience and rightly so. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Whenever possible, I like to arrive unannounced.  This lets me experience the real arrival experience; the one that the attendees will experience.  Are the associates friendly when to you when you first arrive? Did they smile and welcome you? This is a good indicator of the level of service you can expect to experience at the hotel.

2. Guest Room – In addition to looking at the overall cleanliness of the room, you should pay attention to amenities in the guest room.  Knowing your attendees’ needs will help with this.  If there are a lot of females in the group, a make-up mirror may be important. If it is a lot of couples or double occupancy rooms, two sinks may be important. Whenever time and budget permit, it is always best to stay at least one night at the hotel so you can see how comfortable the bed is, if the room is soundproof from street and guest room corridor noises etc. Lastly, always ask to be shown the worst room in the hotel.  Your sales person will only show you the best room view / category they have. Unless they can guarantee that your group will ALL receive this exact room type / view, ask to be shown what the “other” room types are that make up your Run of House rate.

3. Meeting Space – Unless your group is a pure incentive trip, you will probably need to use some of the hotel meeting / conference space. For many groups, this is a major component of the meeting.  There is laundry list of items to consider with regards to the meeting space but here are the top items in my opinion.

a) Obstructions – large lighting and pillars can obstruct the view and make it difficult to plan seating / staging and audio visual

b) Air Walls – most meeting space will have air walls. Check to see the condition of them because this is what will be one of your four “walls” and if it is dirty or torn up, it is not what you want your attendees to be looking at. Also check in major space to see if they have double air walls – this will give you a sound barrier to whatever is happening on the other side.

c) Service Corridor – the service corridor is where the kitchen usually is and where the hotel staff are located.  If it is right behind your general session, you may have noise issues.  Have a look back there and ask what kind of system they use to advise the staff that there is a meeting in that room. While back there, have a glance to see how organized the “back of the house” is.  Is it clean and tidy or are there chairs and banquet trays stacked everywhere?  If the back of the house is clean, chances are, the front of the house (the part the guests see and experience) will also be well taken care of.

4. What’s In House? – There is no industry standard for items that a hotel will own or use so never assume.  Ask about the hotel owned linen for banquets – what color is it and are there options for other colors (with and without a charge). Ask about the size of tables they use. For banquet round seating, you can have a 60”, 66” and a 72” round. If you seat 10 people per table at your awards banquet, you will want to know if they have 60” or 72” rounds.  Those 12” will make a difference in the comfort of your guests. Same for the rectangle tables used for classroom or conference seating.  They come in different widths (18” and 30”) as well as different lengths (6’ and 8’).  If you have a group that needs a lot of writing space and it is mostly men, 6’ tables with an 18” depth may not work as well as an 8’ length with a 36”depth. Lastly, ask what in house props the hotel owns for banquet décor.  This can save you from having to hire and pay a theme company to provide décor. It is even better if the hotel has an actual group function taking place while you are there so you can see the set up.

5. The Team – Within a hotel, there are many departments but the two you will work most closely with are Sales and Conference or Convention Services.  These two departments should work as a team; partner with each other to service you, the customer.  On your site visit, ask to meet a representative from the CS department. Understand that the person you meet will necessarily be your CS manager. But, it is important to see the willingness of this department to take a few minute out of their very busy schedule to meet you and ask if you have any questions for them as they relate to you making a decision on a host property.  Another aspect of the team is to ask the question about the ownership and management of the hotel if you do not already know.  Do not assume that the hotel is owned and managed by the company who has their name on the building (I wrote a blog about hotel ownership if you need further clarification as to why this is important).

This is my top five things to consider on a site inspection.  Before going on a site inspection, have your check list made up and have it in hand as you walk through the property.  Take notes and photos as I guarantee you will not remember all the details when you get back to the office.

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1. Confirm in writing, as soon as possible, the day/date/time of the site inspection.  Chances are, you are not the only hotel the customer is visiting.  If you are the last to respond, you may get left out altogether or get a limited amount of time.  The best place to be on a site agenda is the last hotel (final impression) and to either host the client for an overnight stay or at the very least, share a meal with them.  Having them for a 45 minute window to show a guest room and some meeting space before they leave for the next hotel, will not do you any justice.

2. Be on time!  If you have confirmed you will meet them at 10:00 am, you should be in your lobby, waiting for the clients to arrive, at least 10 minutes early.  Do not leave from that spot until they have arrived.  A quick trip to the restroom or to answer a phone call and you could miss them. Now you have tarnished your first impression with client and “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”.

3. Always have a welcome sign.  It does not matter if the group is a ten person board meeting or a 5,000 person annual convention.  Make them feel welcome, and ALWAYS make sure you have the correct spelling of the company and the individual names, and in the appropriate order.

4. Know their needs. Memorize or at the very least, be as familiar with the meeting agenda as the customers are. The planners live and breathe their agenda and so should you, if only for the time you have them at your hotel.  If you take them to a meeting room that holds 50 people and their needs call for a room that holds 100, you have just lost credibility with them.  Have a copy of the agenda with you for the walk through as well as the room names of how you currently foresee blocking the space.  No one will hold you to this space but you should at least show you can accommodate their needs with comfort and room to grow.

5. Be prepared.  Have a sales kit in hand with floor plans and room capacities.  These should be given to the clients before you walk the conference space so they can make notes and follow along, not as an after thought as they are leaving.

6. Know the clients.  If you are hosting them for a meal or overnight, get a profile on each person to know their likes, dislikes, food allergies etc.  I have seen dinners hosted in a seafood restaurant with a client who is allergic to shellfish and a bottle of wine with cheese sent to a recovering alcoholic as a room gift.  No one is suggesting you ask for personal information like a social security number or their kids birthdays, just basic facts that will help the hotel customize the experience.

These may all seem very basic but unfortunately, there are sales ”professionals” out there who are not doing these very simple steps.  I see it all the time.  The gifts, spa treatments and “wine & dine” experiences are all great but if you miss the mark on the basics, the other stuff is not going to matter and you will lose the business.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 36 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 18 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 11mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was May 26th with 77 views. The most popular post that day was Learn The Lingo – Hotel Terms You Should Know.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Learn The Lingo – Hotel Terms You Should Know May 2010
2 comments

Learn The Lingo – More Meeting and Event Vocabulary May 2010
2 comments

Catering Tips For Your Next Banquet Function June 2010

Who Owns That Hotel You Just Contracted? (And Why It Matters….) June 2010
1 comment

About Lauralee Borrero February 2010

They are all boutique in size ranging from just 17 rooms at the King Pacific Lodge, (a floating hotel shadowed by the rainforest of British Columbia Canada) to the largest with 330 rooms in Saudi Arabia.  This global company pays great attention to detail and service levels.  For the most part due to the number of sleeping rooms and amount of meeting space each property has, they only service one group at a time.  No longer do you have to worry about being the big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond – you will be the only fish!

I think my favorite resort in the collection has to be the Rosewood Mayakoba in Q. Roo Mexico.  Located in the Riviera Maya region, this resort is truly spectacular.  Check them out at http://www.rosewoodmayakoba.com This property will take your breath away!

For city locations it is hands down The Carlyle in New York.  You can’t beat the location or the history this hotel has.  Authentic New York through and through, this truly is the place to stay if you want to experience the best New York has to offer.  Check out this hotel at http://www.thecarlyle.com.

Bottom line, whatever and where ever you are looking, this small but high-end portfolio will have something for everyone’s taste and most everyone’s budget.

When I arrived, the room was almost full.  It was set classroom / schoolroom with 3 seats per 6′ table.  No table covers or skirting but then I really did not expect this from a facility of this caliber.  What I did expect though was to be comfortable and to be able to see the instructor.

The hotel seems to be using this meeting room for their chair storage.

I understand that many buildings require columns for structural support.  Some meeting rooms must be built around these as well.  But just because you CAN set a table behind a column, doesn’t mean you should. I think hotel set up staff should try to sit through a class with the view I had last night!

The airport sits on more than 13,000 acres making it the 3rd largest landmass in the USA.  The terminal(s) comprise over 6.5 million square feet with two international arrival concourses and 96 gates.  For those arriving from international destinations, OIA has US Customs and Boarder Patrol facilities to accommodate these international guests. For locals flying elsewhere, the airport boasts more than 20,000 parking spaces.

The first airport expansion in the early 1980′s came with a price tag of $300 million.  This put the airport in 25th place in the US with passenger traffic with at 6 million people and 13 airlines.  Fast forward almost 30 years and Orlando International Airport received almost 3 million International passengers and over 33 million total passengers.  The airport is now served by some 60 carriers and has non-stop service to almost 80 cities in the US and 25 international locations.

This is truly a world class facility as far as airports go.  In 2008 “First Florida” opened; a walk in clinic inside the terminal.  Forbes has called OIA the most “wired” airport and J.D. Power & Associates has ranked Orlando International Airport 4th in Customer Service.

Whether you are coming or going, your experience at Orlando International Airport will be a magical one.

A cruise offers something for everyone.  All ages, all desired levels of activity and all interests.  For anyone who has not been on a cruise, it is impossible to be bored, unless that is what you want to do.  Our shipboard activities revolved around food and more food but thanks to the gym and outdoor track on deck 12, I only gained a couple of pounds. 

What amazed me most about the experience is how functional the ship can be for hosting a meeting.  As a meeting professional, I was on the trip not to eat, drink and be merry but to view it as a potential location for my clients and their meetings.  If I took a hotel check list and walked a cruise ship, I would find that most ships have every amenity and service that a hotel / resort has to offer. 

* Several types of guest room accommodations including suites

* Designated meeting space and business center

* In house A/V equipment

* First class food and beverage

* Dining outlets for private group dining and / or dine arounds

* Entertainment / Optional Tours and Activities

* Spa and Gym

* Shopping

The biggest difference is that on a cruise ship, almost all of the above is included for one price.  What would it cost you to bring in Blue Man Group or an off Broadway production of Chicago for your entertainment? This is included in the cost of the cruise.  All of that staging, lighting, sound system etc. is available to groups to use for their sessions, at no additional charge.  Some groups spend in the tens of thousands of dollars on A/V and productions.  Plus, there are no resort fees, all meals are included and for those who allow families to travel with the attendee, the children’s programing is free as well. 

I did not want to pay the roaming fees for my phone so I went four days without my Blackberry.  This could be viewed as a positive or a negative for groups.  Not having the distraction of text messages and e-mails will help to focus on the content of the meeting. And for those who really need to be connected, there is an internet cafe and WiFi can be found on the ship for a nominal fee.

There are over 70 cruise lines in the world with sailing around the globe starting from as few as three nights.  Just as hotels vary by location, brand, and level of service so do ships.  If you have never thought about cruising as an option to a land based meeting, you should!

For starters, anyone who uses a Smart Phone like the Blackberry or iPhone, be forewarned, the Spotme device is almost as addictive.  The Spotme is a handheld unit, a little larger than an iPhone. The front face slides up to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, but a couple of the keys, like the space bar, are in a different location than on your regular keyboard.

On the main screen, there were nine icons to choose from as well as a streaming banner with logos from many of the conference sponsors.  This area can be a great revenue source for associations to sell the ad space and cover the cost of renting Spotme for their conventions.

There was an icon for the agenda.  Within the agenda area, you could tab through day by day and scroll down for the hour by hour agenda, listing each of the session. If you wanted more details on a session, click on it and you get the description, times, room location etc.  Click on the room name and a map of the conference center shows so you can find the session. Click on the presenters name you can read their bio. Way Cool!

Another icon was messaging.  This is just like IM’ing that we do on our phones now. The conference organizers used this feature for follow up surveys after sessions and for room changes, notices about lost cell phones etc.  Anything you need be to communicated to all the attendees can be done with a few key strokes with the Spotme.

In the “binder” section, I could scroll through all the items available to bid on in the silent auction.  Each item had a description, a value noted, what the starting bid was and what the increase bidding increments had to be.  The only thing you could NOT do was actually bid on an item from the Spotme device.

One of the most used icons was the “Exchange Business Cards” tool.  This made the conference very “green”.  No one needed to bring business cards.  Whatever information was provided when you registered was exchanged when you “bumped” with another attendee.  Anyone could see your photo, name and company, but you had to meet face to face and physically touch the two units together to exchange the detailed information like phone, e-mail etc. After the conference, everyone you “bumped” with was sent to you via a web link and you just click and downloaded their Vcards to Outlook.  No typing or scanning.  Plus, you can add notes on the persons contact information you just met to reference a follow-up call to action or something to help you remember them.  Way Cool!

Finally, my favorite tool, the tool for which the device is named; Spotme.  You can set the device to let you know when someone you want to spot is near you. It will vibrate and then show you on the screen what direction they are and how many feet away they are, up to about 50 feet.  Their photo will appear so you will know how to recognize them in the crowd. You can also use the “radar” feature to see who is around you.  All their names / photos show with 10 to 50 feet from your location and you just click on their picture to see more about them. You have to be fast though because if you spend too long reading about them to see if you want to meet them, they could have walked away.

Now, some people considered this a “stalking” tool but to be clear, in order for the GPS tracking to work (Spotme and Radar features), you need to be within reach of a signal and the towers were only placed in the conference area or at the off site event location.  They would NOT work in the guest room area for security and privacy reasons.  You could still read the agenda and load in names to spot etc, while in your room, but it would not actually do any spotting or IM’ing until you were back within the conference center and the tower signals.

You can be sure that I will recommend this to my clients for larger meetings or convention where many of the attendees do not know each other.  It was fun, easy to use and definitely a Way Cool Tool!

This boutique hotel, located in the Naples area, is owned in partnership by Nobel House and the Collier family; a local family for whom Collier county is named.  The hotel is bordered by water on two sides; one side is the Gulf of Mexico, the other side is Vanderbilt Bay.  With guest rooms housed in three buildings, I got to tour the main building.  The hotel has direct access to the beach, no boardwalk to meander along to get to beautiful white sands.

The main building has a total of 88 rooms, all king beds with 8 of the rooms being suites.  This is a great location for an incentive trip.  Each of these guest rooms has a four poster bed, a furnished balcony overlooking the Gulf, a bistro table with two chairs, a double sofa bed and a bathroom that has stunning marble and a window in the wall by the tub so you can look out at the Gulf of Mexico while soaking in a relaxing bubble bath.  The rooms also have stocked mini bars, robes and a make-up mirror; the robe and make-up mirror are two of my personal hot buttons when it comes to standard amenities so I was loving the place already!  There is also a desk / work station for those who really want to work while away.

The suites in this building have an old Florida feel with the décor the hotel owners have chosen.  There are two full baths, a sitting area and dining area for eight.  The suite parlors can also double for hospitality for entertaining small groups.

Just next to this main building is the Beach House which has a total of 61 rooms, a combination of both king and double/double rooms.  I did not get to see these rooms as they were all sold out! 

The final area for sleeping rooms is in a building that is actually located across the street; the Bay Tower.  The 40 rooms in this building overlook the Vanderbilt Bay.  Of the 40, there are 4 double/double and rest are king bedded.  It may be an inconvenience to have the rooms across the street on the bay side as opposed to the beach side, but below these bay view rooms is all the meeting space.  So, a group on this side would be self-contained for their meetings, meals and sleeping rooms; all overlooking the bay.  These rooms average 600 square feet, but, they too were sold out so I could not get in to see one in person.

All of the meeting rooms on the bay side have French doors that open onto a terrace overlooking Vanderbilt Bay.  There are not many hotels who can say that 100% of their meeting rooms have exterior access with views like those found at the marina below the terrace.  The hotel has two ballrooms.  The Bayview Ballroom is 4,500 square feet and divides into four sections.  The Vanderbilt Ballroom is 5,500 square feet and divides into four sections as well.  The décor in both is a tasteful Florida with classy chandeliers and tray ceilings and both ballrooms have double airwalls for sound proofing.

The hotel has one restaurant, Balean, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.  This venue doubles as the hotel’s bar.  There is poolside dining too for lunch at the Tiki bar.  This outdoor restaurant services all four, YES FOUR, swimming pools (each with a cascading waterfall!).  The beach butlers offer full food and beverage service on the beach; just raise your flag and they are on it. There is even a fire pit where you can make Smores in the evening (Smores kits are sold in the gift shop).  I should also note that the entire hotel – guest rooms, meeting space, public areas including the pools, offer WiFi connectivity.  There is no charge for this as it is part of the daily resort fee.  There are a host of other amenities included in the resort fee giving it value and not the appearance of pure “bottom line profit” like at some resorts.  Lastly, there is a Spa on site with seven treatment rooms.  Not a huge Spa by comparison to some other area resorts but a good size amenity for a hotel with less than 200 rooms.  The fitness studio is next to the Spa and has all the basic equipment one would hope to find at a four diamond resort like LaPlaya.

A group of 75 people or less would be ideal to meet and feed at this hotel.  I am hopeful that one of my clients will be interested in this resort so that I have an excuse to drive back to Naples and stay a bit longer next time.

The historic hotel screams class, elegance and extraordinary service at every turn.  After a three hour drive to get there from Orlando we decided to start with lunch but I had to check out the Spa on the way.  I have to admit, I can smell a spa at 100 yards so I was very excited to see the Spa Palazzo.  The spa is inspired by the Alhambra Palace in Spain. This “Palace” has some of the most beautiful marble, tile and mosaics I have ever seen.  

The Spa Palazzo boasts 44 private treatment rooms offering an array of spa treatments.  What blew me away was the Ritual Bath area.  I have never seen anything so inviting; I wanted to skip lunch, take off all my clothes and begin the “Ritual”.  There are nine individual mineral baths, waterfall showers, whirlpool, steam / sauna and inhalation rooms.   

Lunch was at the Clubhouse and was delicious!  Too much food of course, but that is okay because we spent the next hour or so walking it off as we toured the resort.  With four different room types / areas to view, I was glad I wore my “site inspection” shoes.   

Yacht Club Guestroom

Tower Guestroom

Detailed Architecture

Main Lobby

As we walked from the main building to the Tower and the Yacht Club, I was blown away by the attention to detail in the decor that you find in this landmark property. The 1920′s architecture, complimented by all the technology and comforts of the 21st century and does so with ease. 

The meeting space options also blew me away.  There is space available in the “Tower” but there are also small break out rooms at the Yacht Club – perfect for a small group or a high end board meeting.  The resort’s new conference center was built with all the bells and whistles one would expect in this day and age.  

Pre Function space in the Mizner Center

What I loved most about this resort were all the smiling faces everywhere of the resort associates.  You could tell that they take pride in their place of work and happy hotel associates generally make for happy conference attendees.  I can’t wait to have a client ask for this resort to bid on a meeting; I know the event would be a huge success.