INSPIRATION AND IDEAS

Sometimes where a conference is held can help fuel the creative thinking. Conferences are more than just a gathering of a group of industry peers or people with a shared interest or profession, they are also a rich source of ideas and inspiration from the speakers, other delegates or just from the chance to experience another environment and get the creative juices flowing.

Shelley Eastwood, the director of sales, conference and incentives for Heritage Hotel Management, says the environment a conference or executive team strategy meeting is held in can make all the difference.

“Sometimes that environment can actually fuel the thinking and the networking.”

Eastwood points to Heritage Cromwell property on the shores of Lake Dunstan in Central Otago, as a case in point.

A new experience in a beautiful location helps attendees gain a different mindset, she says, noting attendees can fly into Queenstown with Cromwell a 45-minute drive away.

The group manages 19 properties, ranging from the 16 suite Heritage Collection Marlborough Vintners Hotel in Blenheim through to the Rutherford Hotel in Nelson which can cater for a 700-person conference.

She says it surprises a lot of people that there is such a big conference hotel in a regional area. It’s popular with association conferences, because of ease of access to Nelson.

The flagship hotel, Heritage Auckland, is one of the city’s most recognisable historic landmark buildings, the iconic Farmers department store building. With 10 meeting rooms, the flexible space can cater for small meetings to a 300-person conference. She says the majority of the function space has natural light which is sought after.

Eastwood say the group is strong domestically in conferencing, business retreats or team getaways and in the last few years it has seen real interest in their regional offerings, especially for smaller groups of around 50 to 60 for a corporate conference or inhouse company event.

Another area where Eastwood is seeing growing

interest is the eight hotels in the group where the conference can have sole use of the hotel which, she says, makes for an exciting opportunity for a conference organiser.

While the hotels do need a bit more lead time for this, Eastwood says it means the conference attendees have total privacy with no one else in the hotel and they can have their own branding throughout the hotel’s public spaces.

However the size of the hotel needs to suit the demand, she says. An Australian group has booked the entire three wings of Heritage Queenstown for four nights in August this year.

As to the cities versus regions, she says it depends on what the conference organisers need to achieve.

In a city, more flight options and potential local attendees may mean greater delegate numbers or the organisers may want to add more content to the programme and include a variety of diverse activities, that might only be found in a city. M