Perhaps the biggest trend in travel preferences over the past couple of years has been the desire for authentic, hands-on experiences that bring encounters with local culture and opportunities for personal growth. While most often associated with leisure travel, these objectives are no less true for meetings, particularly in resort locations where cultural, wellness and adventurous diversions abound.
The meetings industry is clearly taking note. When compiling survey results for its 2016 Top Meeting Package Trends, the International Association of Conference Centers reported that 65 percent of planners said clients were asking for inclusions beyond the usual meeting space, food and beverage, and tech services. According to the survey, the top additional items requested were teambuilding, local cultural trips, coaching and facilitation.
“It’s becoming much more important to offer enriching experiences for groups—more of our customers are interested in local culture and local experiences,” said Andrew Finn, vice president of group sales for Benchmark Hospitality, which operates hotels, resorts and conference centers around the world. “This has intensified even during the past two or three years. People still want the nitty-gritty of space, rates and dates, but they also want experiences that fit in with what their meeting is trying to accomplish.”
At Benchmark properties, these experiences can take a variety of twists tied in with the various locations. At Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, Calif., a new offering called Mindful Meetings includes such amenities as meditation nooks in the newly renovated guest rooms, a guided meditation at the start and end of each day’s meeting led by a resident meditation expert and a yoga/Pilates therapist, guided hikes on the resort’s nature trails, discounts on spa treatments and special menu selections. At the Doral Arrowood Resort in Rye Brook, N.Y., a new offering is The Remarkable Race, a teambuilding activity focusing on risk versus reward challenges throughout the resort’s 114 wooded acres.
Kindred Spirits
Among other hospitality companies aware of the need to provide engaging experiences for groups is Kindred Hotels & Resorts, which has a portfolio of 64 properties, primarily in resort locations around the U.S. Much like Finn, Kindred’s managing director, Bree Brostko, has seen demand intensify over the past few years.
“There has been a turnaround in attitude that arose after 2008 when the meeting industry retracted, and companies were not meeting as often and were focusing only on serious business sessions,” she said. “Teambuilding and other activities got put on the back burner. Now companies are seeing value in allowing their teams to have immersive experiences, to get out of the boardroom and let relationships develop.”
The varieties of meeting experiences at Kindred properties are as varied as the locations themselves, according to Brostko.
Examples are found at Sea Island Resort in Georgia, where a scavenger hunt takes participants through the salt marshes, beaches and other areas of the property’s coastal environment, and at Woodstock Inn & Resort in Vermont, where attendees can go on an orienteering course through the Green Mountains created by a former Navy Seal.
“A very fun new teambuilding activity is at the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Texas, where groups get on jumbo paddleboards that hold up to six people,” Brostko said. “It gets coworkers out onto the lake while instilling some physical challenge.”
Noble House Hotels & Resorts also takes a localized and immersive approach to meetings at its resort properties, according to Vice President of Sales and Marketing Elizabeth Grillos.
One of the most distinctive experiences can be found at Gateway Canyons Resort & Spa in Gateway, Colo., where the resident Curator of Curiosity Zebulon Miracle, a local naturalist, leads groups on hikes through dinosaur fossil beds and teaches workshops on making traditional tools used by Native Americans.
“If I’ve done my job, people will take a closer look at their own environment once they get back home,” Miracle said.
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Community Service
Clearly more than a passing fad, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has taken off in new directions since it came onto the meetings scene shortly after Hurricane Katrina inspired volunteer efforts among convention groups and others visiting New Orleans.
Among the leaders in CSR is The Ritz-Carlton, which last year introduced Impactful Experiences, part of its company-wide Community Footprints CSR program, as a way for group guests to “address local social and environmental issues and to feel personally connected to the local community,” according to Herve Humler, president and COO.
Examples of how Impactful Experiences makes community service part of meetings include participation in coastal trail and rainforest restoration near the The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua in Maui and building bird nests for migrating rare bird species at the Futian Mangrove Natural Reserve Area near the The Ritz-Carlton, Shenzhen in China.
Impact Experiences also offers on-property experiences that may be incorporated into a meetings agenda during breaks or receptions. These include partnering with the hotel’s culinary team to create a local dish for donation to a hunger relief organization, assembling school supplies and art materials in backpacks for donation to schools or assembling emergency relief kits to be shipped to a disaster relief facility.
At Benchmark Hospitality, each hotel or resort has its version of the company’s Hometown Hospitality concept, in which properties form local community partnerships to facilitate CSR experiences for groups, according to Finn.
“For instance, when Caterpillar Inc. met at the Garden of the Gods Club Resort in Colorado Springs, they were able to join forces with the Rocky Mountain Field Institute to clear out a burned area of a canyon,” he said. “Caterpillar brought in their own heavy equipment, including trucks and bulldozers, to help with the project.”
Similarly, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts also infuses CSR projects and other local experiences into its meetings offerings, according to Michelle Heston, regional spokesperson, who manages philanthropic outreach programs for several Fairmont resort hotels, including the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa in Northern California.
“In Sonoma, we work closely with a school that serves students below the poverty line and also with the local Boys and Girls Clubs,” she said. “Planners are asking for opportunities for their groups to give back to the community. It reflects a shift in American business culture, and it makes people feel good.”
Going Local
Community involvement and local connections are also part of the concept behind Andaz Hotels, Hyatt’s luxury boutique hotel brand. At the new Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya, which just opened in Playa del Carmen south of Cancun, Mexico, getting incentive groups involved with local artists and others in the community will be a major focus of the beachfront resort, according to Tulio Baruch, director of sales and marketing.
“We are providing many opportunities for groups to experience and learn about the local culture, whether it’s contemporary or ancient Mayan,” he said. “For example, we can bring in a storyteller to talk about how astronomy influenced the Mayans and create meals based on Mayan culture, which was inspired by the sun, moon and Earth.”
For something more contemporary, the Andaz has partnerships with graphic artists who have created murals and other artwork installed in the hotel.
“We can take groups on a city tour to see the local murals and also offer art workshops where everyone gets together to create a collaborative painting,” Baruch said. “Or we can do events with food trucks serving local foods and where artists come in to do demonstrations and talk about their work.”
Andaz Mayakoba is also partnering with the Rivera Maya Resort Association on CSR activities that benefit local schools, animal shelters and other organizations.
