Treat your clients to some hospitality

Oct 4 2005 By Evening Gazette

Corporate Hospitality helps you to get to know your customers and to allow them to get to know your business, staff and products better.

It can be divided into two types -

External - which involves promoting your business to existing or potential clients and using the informality of a social event to find out more about the client's needs.

Internal - which is when you aim to reward your staff, motivate them and enable them to work better as a team.

There is a wide range of things you can do, like spectator events which cover anything from Wimbledon to a local football match or a visit to the theatre or the races.

You may wish to invite clients to a lunch, dinner or party. or there are participation events like clay pigeon shooting and off-road driving.

Team building events are a common form of corporate incentive for staff - although you have to be careful to make sure the activities will be suitable for everyone.

You may wish to organise small-scale events in-house, managing tasks including creating a guest list, sending out invitations, selecting a venue as well as organising catering and entertainment.

Alternatively, you may decide to use the services of an event organiser who will work in close collaboration with outside suppliers including conference centres and marquee hire companies, audio and visual equipment hire companies and use a wide variety of venues, ranging from large stately homes to small hotels.

Event organisers usually offer a package tailored to your business' needs and objectives, timetable, budget and guest profile.

Hotels are ideally suited to playing host to corporate hospitality and events organisers are increasingly turning to such venues when looking for somewhere to host corporate hospitality events.

Accessibility, privacy and something just a little bit extra special are key factors that attract organisers.

Corporate hospitality can be used as a means of addressing specific business objectives which may include raising customer awareness, increasing business profits, demonstrating your products or services to a relevant audience, celebrating a special occasion as well as improving staff morale or building team working skills.

Hotels provide not just accommodation. Business conferences, IT facilities, highly trained staff, and a package of leisure facilities such as golf, fishing, archery, croquet, even clay pigeon shooting, may be available.

It's already there, on site, and can be packaged and delivered almost in any desired package. Most hotels also have their own gym and health and beauty suite. Some offer a chauffeur sight seeing service.

The flexibility and choice of offered by hotels is an organiser's dream. Any variation of packages can be designed to ensure the desired corporate experience.

There are special packages where, for example, the corporate colleagues will play golf, whilst a chauffeur service can escort the partners sightseeing and shopping followed by a relaxed evening's entertainment together.

Heritage sites are increasingly seeing the benefits of their sites in providing top class corporate facilities in unusual settings; castles, even Roman forts, providing that venue with a hospitality experience that is distinctive and memorable and provides what every organisation dreams for: market differentiation - standing out from your competitors.

For any organiser these venues are great - not just because the infrastructure is already in place but hotels and the like enjoy a key strategic role in promoting the region and as part of a careful sales and marketing strategy.