Long a leisure draw, Colonial Williamsburg provides a meeting experience that blends past with present, all in a living history museum where groups can enjoy modern amenities in a self-contained setting.
And when meeting here, the money groups spend goes directly into preserving history and also to schools across the country.
“I look at us as probably one of the most unique hotel companies in the U.S. because we’re owned by a foundation and it’s not-for-profit,” says Thomas Spong, director of sales at Colonial Williamsburg Hotels. “And revenues go into keeping Colonial Williamsburg alive.”
Groups have a variety of hotel choices.
The high-end Williamsburg Inn, which is where President Reagan and Queen Elizabeth rested their heads during their respective visits, features 5,000 square feet of meeting space and 62 guest rooms.
The 323-room Williamsburg Lodge provides 5,000 square feet of meeting space and a connected conference center with 45,000 square feet of space and 28 meeting rooms.
The more-moderately priced, 300-room Williamsburg Woodlands boasts a standalone conference center with 13,000 square feet of space, and is a good fit with middle management or government meetings for up to 250.
In all, the destination offers four hotels and 1,040 guest rooms, along with 77 colonial houses and taverns.
Spong says most groups theme one night and perhaps do an outdoor function, ending with a fife and drums corps leading attendees to one of the historic taverns for dinner.
“Almost every group does one tavern dinner and a final night banquet, but a lot want to go out and have a dinner,” he says, noting that the destination’s award-winning banquet team has been dedicating a lot of effort to farm-to-table cuisine.
Other activity options include buses to the nearby colonial draws of Jamestown and Yorktown, as well as Busch Gardens and Water Country USA.
