We are huge advocates of site visits, really no matter what, they should happen. Sometimes they can’t, we get that, but we really encourage them to happen. Our client is in the midst of planning their largest event of the year and the hotels in Prague and Budapest can’t hold the meeting space forever. She calls saying, I need you to be my eyes and ears and tell us which is the better choice for our group.

When we are doing site selection for our clients, we want to know who the audience is, the goals of the program and where the majority of the people are traveling from. We have a whole slew of other questions we ask, but you get the jest. This was an internal meeting and 60% of the audience was coming from the US and 40% from Europe. This is a meeting alternates between the US and Europe and it was Europe’s turn to host.

We reached out to our hotel partners to coordinate the site visits as well as find out their preferred DMC (destination management companies) they partnered with. After talking with everyone, multiple emails back and forth, we were set with our schedule.

When you are doing a site visit, you need to start at the beginning and that is the airport experience, what is it like and especially since we had so many US attendees it was important to know the process they would go through when they land. It’s also important to explore the area, not just the hotel. The attendees will be wanting to break free of the hotel once their sessions are over (especially if they are in a new city). Are there lots of restaurants close by? Does it feel safe to walk around at night? Can you take an Uber of Lift, or does it need to be a cab? There are so many details.