The topic of “hotel safety” has never been so relevant. Over the last few months, hotels and venues across the world have adopted new health and safety protocols as well as technology to help.
Meet In Place provide individual, luxury meeting rooms to rent by the hour, with venues in London, New York and Tel Aviv. They pride themselves on “gorgeously designed rooms with simplistic but cosy decor, unlimited still and sparkling water, coffee and tea, high-spec, easy-to-use tech and a fabulous on-site team”.
For this Hotel Safety Spotlight, we spoke to Head of Sales, Rebecca Bain, to find out how Meet In Place are handling hotel safety and their approach to keeping guests safe. Read on to find out more.
Find out how Meet In Place are approaching hotel safety:
What steps are your venue taking to create a safe but engaging environment for guests?
We have a simple-to-follow guide for each guest who attends Meet In Place to ensure our clients and team stay safe. Included in our COVID-19 guidelines is the rigorous cleaning of each room and all surfaces after every meeting. Each room is sanitized, closed, then not entered until the following guest arrives for their meeting.
Masks are compulsory in the communal areas and we have some if clients forget. Sanaitizer is placed in multiple locations around the venue and for each meeting, planners must submit contact details (for track and trace purposes) of every attendee, 24 hours prior to the meeting.
It is of utmost importance that we ensure our clients and team stay and feel safe when entering any MIP venue, not only in London, but around the world.
How are you approaching social distancing in your venue?
In the communal areas there are decals on the floors highlighting to keep your distance from the next guest. The use of lifts is set to a maximum number of guests at any time; staircases are also open to utilise one at a time.
Within the room we have ensured that there is a chair between each guest to allow for social distancing. This has meant our capacities have halved in all of our venues; however, we are still able to host up 13 guests comfortably around the boardroom table and up to 25 in theatre style.
What challenges or obstacles have you encountered while setting your venue up for a post-pandemic environment?
We have found that halving our capacities has meant that we have had to be more creative with the space to ensure clients are kept safe and have the space and set up they ask for. This has been an obstacle we have had to overcome.
What has been working well and what have your guests responded positively to?
Our venus are ‘’contact free’’ which clients really appreciate. With spaces not used once sanitised, top-ups of refreshments are left at the door of the meeting room when required - meaning no extra contact from our teams and clients once in their rooms.
As we are individual rooms, clients are safe in the knowledge that they shall not be sharing the space with anyone but their meeting guests - in this respect we are set up perfectly for this new environment we are now all in.
Have you been using any technology to help keep guests safe?
We have seen a large number of clients needing AV to video call from while at Meet In Place - which we include for no extra cost to the client.
While travel is still not back to what it used to be just yet - we ensure that keeping connected this way is incredibly important to businesses. Because of this, we have made sure ours is super simple to use and there is always a team member on hand to assist should the client need this.
How are you keeping planners safe during the sourcing process?
We have always used virtual tours in our venues for guests to walk through the space from home - our venues are so beautifully designed it really helps bring us to life.
King William Street Virtual Tour
How are you letting planners know that your venue is open and safe for events?
We speak with our agencies on a daily basis and have shared all of our COVID-19 guidelines which guests and our teams are to adhere to while in the Meet In Place venues.
Has Cvent helped at all? If yes, how?
We have a great relationship with Cvent. We have worked with many of their clients across the board to host their events or meetings with us and look forward to this relationship blossoming and enabling us to work together more often.
These are uncertain times, but together we will succeed.
Event planners and venues must lean on eachother more than ever to be successful. New restrictions and COVID-19 guidelines are new to all of us. That means that it is key to collaborate effectively and to know what the other side expects.
Up next, check out our on-demand webinar on reconnecting planners and venues.
