One of the more challenging elements of the planning process is determining where to hold your meeting. A mountain of work can go into researching your group’s needs, putting together the RFP, conducting multiple site inspections and then following up with additional questions.
Meetings Focus sat down with four meeting planning pros to gather their sage-like wisdom and break down the steps of the site selection process. Welcome to site selection boot camp!
Drill #1: Determine the needs of your group.
All of the planners we spoke with stressed the importance of first meeting up with your group (whether it be an individual client, association or company) to determine the needs of the event and what objectives they have in place.
“Planners have to get out of the destination mindset, meaning, okay, the destination is the draw, but what makes that destination meaningful to you meeting your objectives?” says Phillip Ridley, CMP, meeting and special event manager for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. “The city or venue needs to fit your audience, as in here are my demographics, here’s what my audience looks like—males versus females, Boomers versus Millennials—and figure out if they’re used to doing things a certain way or have certain expectations or income levels.”
Once you have determined the individual wants of your attendees, including ideology and whether a venue might clash with your particular event, you are ready to move onto the next step in the site selection process. PageBreak
Drill #2: Prepare the RFP (with checklist).
Most of the planners mentioned putting together a checklist to include with your RFP, so that when a hotel or convention center expresses interest in your event based on the standard “rates, dates and space” information and your group’s needs, the property can also give you details that go beyond what is available on the website, as that information is often tailored toward a more-general audience.
“I believe a good RFP leads to a good proposal, leads to a good site inspection if possible, which then leads to a solid contract,” says Joan Eisenstodt, president of Washington D.C.-based Eisenstodt Associates, and a meetings and hospitality consultant, facilitator and trainer. “You’re not going to have accurate information if you don’t ask the right questions beforehand.”
Eisenstodt uses an extensive checklist that goes far beyond the APEX standards to gather details on taxes and service charges, bedbug inspections, ADA compliance, risk management and other issues.
Drill #3: Narrow down your list of choices.
Many planners have been guilty of sending out too many RFPs and then proceeding to be overwhelmed when it comes down to selecting which properties to visit for site inspections.
“Another mistake planners make is to look at everything, so they send out an RFP and send it to 15 hotels and they go look at 15 hotels,” says Melissa Biele, CMP, director of event marketing at Couchbase, a software company in Mountain View, Calif. “What you really should be doing, is once you send the RFP out and get your responses back, you should be narrowing it down and you should really only be doing site inspections at probably your top three or four properties.
“At this point you know that these fit within your budget constraints, you know they fit your event brand,” she continues. “Maybe you’ve gotten some feedback from people that have held events there before and then you go and set up the site inspections.”
Once you schedule visits, you get into what Eisenstodt refers to as “other than site management, the most exhausting part of what we do.” It’s time to pack your bags for the true test of the site selection process: the site inspection. PageBreak
Drill #4: Conduct a thorough site inspection.
There are a number of important items to consider during the site inspection process, but perhaps the most relevant of late is the issue of technology and bandwidth support.
“The best thing a planner can do, that even I’ve had to learn, is that we have to start asking questions about bandwidth and the costs related to it, and we really have to start educating ourselves as well so we know the right questions to ask,” Ridley says. “Ideally, I would be able to find out how much it’s going to cost per person to make sure everyone has access to Wi-Fi and other equipment.”
Ridley notes this is especially difficult to manage with associations, which often plan their annual meetings up to 10 years in advance. His association recently had to work with a city to build a Wi-Fi plan into a contract for an event in 2020 that estimated its needs in terms of availability and usage, to come up with an adjustable price range that was fair to both the hotel and association.
“It’s not about how much the muffin costs anymore or how much does that gallon of coffee cost–that’s really not the deal anymore–because that Wi-Fi will make or break your meeting,” Ridley says.
Other hot button issues among the planners surveyed included looking beyond simple compliance in areas such as disability access and sustainability, along with security information and emergency response time.
“I’m big on checking access points, like how do people get from point A to point B if they were in a wheelchair or scooter, or are dealing with other mobility issues?” says Niesa Silzer, CMP, creative director at Details Convention & Event Management in Calgary, Alberta.
Surprisingly enough, only Silzer found a virtual site visit to be a viable substitute for an on-site inspection, under the right circumstances, of course.
“We work with a small nonprofit association and their meeting is across the country and it just doesn’t make sense for us to fly there,” Silzer says. “So we’ll be relying a lot on the convention services manager and floor plans instead.”
She went on to mention the importance of learning to read floor plans—knowing what a door means and what a column on a floor plan is, etc.—in order to be able to successfully conduct a virtual site inspection.
“I’m often surprised planners don’t have more experience with this,” Silzer says.
Drill #5: Follow up after your site inspection.
Once you have completed your site inspection, it’s not uncommon to encounter some unanswered questions.
“While you’re on-site you generally have more negotiating power,” Biele says. “So if we discussed a decrease in rate or food and beverage minimum, I’m always following up and putting all of that in writing after the site visit.”
After gathering any outstanding information, you can take comfort in knowing you did all you could to choose a successful site for your event. Ultimately, the more research and hard work you put in, the better informed your choice will be.
