If you typically dread attending or organizing business conferences hosted in vast, sterile hotel ballrooms, you're in for a treat. The hotel and meeting industries have been making radical changes in conference environments lately. Here are two exciting new trends you might see at your next large meeting, and you're bound to love them.
More Casual, Comfy Surroundings
Some hotels are switching from traditional big-box ballroom meeting facilities to smaller rooms that more resemble residential spaces. Cozy furniture groupings of sofas, coffee tables and arm chairs have replaced rows of tables and stackable chairs. Soft music and fireplaces lend further comfort and make it easy to transition to social time when work is done.
Instead of catered chafing dishes and jumbo coffee urns, these hotels are also setting up permanent bars, coffee stations, and food carts. Meeting attendees can serve themselves snacks and refreshments when they like, and this arrangement creates more of a food court or gourmet coffee shop atmosphere.
There are several factors driving these changes. In some instances, it's the more casual atmosphere in workplaces today as well as trends like hotdesking and hoteling. Additionally, since the economic downturn, many companies have ceased hosting huge national meetings and switched to regional ones that are more conducive to relaxed, flexible surroundings. The benefit is that attendees now feel more like active participants than passive audience members, which has appeal for both management and employees alike.
State-of-the-Art Technology
Another consequence of the recent move towards smaller, more local meetings is the need for greater audio-visual capability. Instead of having one speaker presenting live in an enormous ballroom, that same person is more likely sending their presentation via teleconferencing to multiple regional centers simultaneously.
Some smart hotels have installed drop-down TVs, much like those on airlines, for easy remote conference viewing. Some have the ability to project a remote event into multiple smaller rooms at once, so groups can view a presentation and then get on with their work in clusters.
Other impressive state-of-the-art technology includes
The next time you need to book a conference space for your business, try a hotel that's embraced one of these innovative trends. You and your colleagues may like the new way of doing business so much you'll never go back to a traditional ballroom again.
Share18 December 2015
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