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Small Meetings, Big Pluses |
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Listen Up! Boutique Meeting Trends---Not Cheap
“Instead of booking partitioned hotel meeting rooms known for their blandness, companies are turning to chic boutique hotels like the Setai in South Beach, Florida, where the setting for a two-day gathering may be a lounge, library, rooftop or pool, and the bill is best often seen through dark glasses.”
Designed for groups of 50 or less, according to writer Paul Burnham Finney in the New YorkTimes Itineraries section, April 8, the boutique venues are providing a ‘new cool’ in meeting environments.
Author Finney provides a quick but anecdotally flavored view of this
changing scene, of particular interest to the 60 million GenX- crowd.
According to Bjorn Hanson, a hotel expert at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the GenXs… ”have changed the whole meeting demographic. Meetings today aren’t arranged to please aging boomers who like etchings of hunting scenes on hotels walls. The GenXs like an aura of casualness. And if a corporate meeting doesn’t look interesting—and they have a choice—they’ll bow out.
But back to the Setai
Unlike the party atmosphere in other South Beach hotels, according to Setai Sales Director Jorge Collazo, they provide informality and a sense of privacy. The Setai hosts some 36 small meetings of fewer than 30 participants each year in its Indonesian-style oceanfront setting.
See www.newyorktimes.com for more detail. It’s free, but registration is generally required.
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