Hotels, Venues & Event news
The property is a 40-minute drive from either Berlin Tegel Airport or Berlin Schönefeld Airport, and within walking distance of a train station.
The venue joins Hampton by Hilton Berlin City West and Hampton by Hilton Berlin City Centre Alexanderplatz within the capital and is the ninth Hampton by Hilton hotel in Germany.
It has been confirmed today that Hyatt Hotels Corporation has won the bid to operate the new Spa & Conference hotel at Edinburgh Marina. This is the international hotelier’s first hotel in Scotland.
The Hyatt Regency hotel at Edinburgh Marina will have 187 bedrooms including a two bedroom Presidential suite together with 98 one, two and three bedroom Hyatt Regency Residences serviced apartments. These apartments will be designed and fitted to the same specification as the hotel room enabling guests to enjoy the service and amenities of a hotel, whilst enjoying all the benefits of a self-contained apartment.
The property will also feature a health spa and fitness centre, a 10,000 sq.ft conference & banqueting centre, restaurants and bars. The hotel will overlook the new 340 berth Edinburgh Marina which will uniquely, for this coastline, provide 24/7 access at all states of tides.
Organising a conference, meeting or event outside the UK brings some additional factors to consider, both for the organiser and the attendee. For example, has everyone got a valid passport, are visas required, has travel insurance been arranged, are there any special medical requirements, what are the luggage guidelines? Do you have everything covered for when you travel abroad?
The websites listed below will be able to help, but remember the regulations can change at any time.
Check the latest information from the Passport Office.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a list of countries with a summary about the destination and information about:
The NHS Fit for Travel website has general travel advice and disease prevention, as well as the immunisation and vaccination requirements for each country.
Make sure that any European travelling in Europe has a European Health Insurance Card. This card entitles the user to access healthcare and some insurers require you to have one.
Check the Department of Health Advice healthcare abroad, it gives advice about how to access the necessary state-provided healthcare.
Insurance – speak to an agent about the insurance for your event and your liability. You will also need insurance to cover all employees travelling abroad.
Freight – if you are shipping equipment and documentation, consult a freight forwarding agent, who will advise the best method, cost, time and prepare the required documentation.
The opening of the latest hotel in the Dakota brand has been confirmed for May 2019, Dakota Deluxe Manchester, located on Dulcie Street, near Piccadilly Station will open with 137 bedrooms, including 27 suites one of which is called the Grand Deluxa and will be the largest suite in the city.
The property will also feature the Grill, the bar, Champagne Room and cigar garden and will join two existing Dakota Deluxe hotels in Glasgow and Leeds and two properties under the more accessible Dakota brand in South Queensferry, Edinburgh, and Eurocentral, on the outskirts of Glasgow.
For an entire month, Montreux celebrates Christmas with one of Switzerland’s largest markets. 160 chalets on the lakeside promenades sell typical dishes and handcrafted gifts. Each year, the centre of the market features a guest, with its costumes and traditional cuisine. For three weekends in December, Chillon Castle provides the setting for “Medieval Magic”, which presents activities from different times. Children are of course the kings of the Christmas season: the MOB trains take them and their families up to Rochers-de-Naye to meet Father Christmas at his home! Each night, the bearded old fellow rides down to the lake on his sleigh to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
To make visitors’ eyes shine year after year, new activities are regularly added to the programme. The latest ones are the sound and light show in the Magical Garden as well as the Village of the Elves, a children’s paradise.
Montreux the charming Swiss resort city located besides Lake Geneva goes to great lengths to put a magical touch on the Christmas season! Stalls on the lakeside promenades, the Loggers’ Village, Medieval Magic, the Village of the Elves and even the House of Father Christmas: all these activities make sure that Montreux Noël is much more than just a market.
For an entire month, Montreux celebrates Christmas with one of Switzerland’s largest markets. 160 chalets on the lakeside promenades sell typical dishes and handcrafted gifts. Each year, the centre of the market features a guest, with its costumes and traditional cuisine. For three weekends in December, Chillon Castle provides the setting for “Medieval Magic”, which presents activities from different times. Children are of course the kings of the Christmas season: the MOB trains take them and their families up to Rochers-de-Naye to meet Father Christmas at his home! Each night, the bearded old fellow rides down to the lake on his sleigh to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
To make visitors’ eyes shine year after year, new activities are regularly added to the programme. The latest ones are the sound and light show in the Magical Garden as well as the Village of the Elves, a children’s paradise.
Montreux the charming Swiss resort city located besides Lake Geneva goes to great lengths to put a magical touch on the Christmas season! Stalls on the lakeside promenades, the Loggers’ Village, Medieval Magic, the Village of the Elves and even the House of Father Christmas: all these activities make sure that Montreux Noël is much more than just a market.
For an entire month, Montreux celebrates Christmas with one of Switzerland’s largest markets. 160 chalets on the lakeside promenades sell typical dishes and handcrafted gifts. Each year, the centre of the market features a guest, with its costumes and traditional cuisine. For three weekends in December, Chillon Castle provides the setting for “Medieval Magic”, which presents activities from different times. Children are of course the kings of the Christmas season: the MOB trains take them and their families up to Rochers-de-Naye to meet Father Christmas at his home! Each night, the bearded old fellow rides down to the lake on his sleigh to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
To make visitors’ eyes shine year after year, new activities are regularly added to the programme. The latest ones are the sound and light show in the Magical Garden as well as the Village of the Elves, a children’s paradise.
Let’s reinvent the way we meet, experience and learn at the MPI European Meetings & Events Conference in the Netherlands.
‘We are not here to play the game. We are here to change it.’
With this quote from the Netflix hit series Peaky Blinders in mind, MPI The Netherlands Chapter started the design process of the European Meetings & Events Conference (EMEC) to be held in February 2019 in The Hague. Now that the promise has been made, it is time to live up to it.
Too often, conferences are using the same design as they have been doing for decades. Keynote speaker on stage, delegates sitting in a ballroom listening to what is said or playing with their smart phones. Yet, there are so many ways people can learn. After all, kids do not learn how to ride their bike just by listening how they should. They need to get on the bike, practice, fall, get up, fall again, get help, and try again. Until they get it. At EMEC19 that is exactly what delegates will experience. Changing the game means changing the way we learn, changing the way we meet and changing the way we experience.
Meeting new and interesting people is high on everyone’s list. But how often do you find yourself with the people you already know? Do not get it wrong, there is plenty of time to meet with old industry friends. But EMEC19 is designed in a way you will meet new people and get to know them well enough to make sure they pick up the phone when you call. Interested in finding out how that promise will be kept? There is only one way to find out…
EMEC19 allows attendees to learn the way that suits him or her best. Part of the programme consists of learning journeys to explore cross industry innovation. Learning journeys that are literally learning + journeys. Delegates are taken out of the meeting room, even out of the conference centre, to explore how other industries deal with the same challenges our industry faces. Another example of a changing learning method is scenario-based learning. If it proved to be good enough for the world leaders, it is worthwhile testing the effectiveness yourself. Are you intrigued yet?
The conference will focus on four main topics: Risk Management, Leadership, Design Thinking, and Meeting Perspectives. Specialist tracks are designed that challenge participants to dive deep into these specific topics. EMEC19 allows delegates to become a ninja on one of the four topics or cherry pick personal favourites from the various topics addressed.
Robbert Weddepohl, president of MPI the Netherlands chapter and Gijs Verbeek, Executive Director of MPI The Netherlands chapter both strongly believe in using local knowledge. After assigning a dedicated project manager, the team decided to put an enormous amount of time towards the design of EMEC19.
Weddepohl: “When we sent out an invitation to help us in designing EMEC19, nearly sixty people showed up. Fascinating, since we only sent out forty-five invitations as we were hoping for a group of around twelve. Planners, suppliers, MPI members, non-members, young, not so young, so many professionals from our industry stood up to help. We felt we were on to something and captured their enthusiasm, creativity and knowledge using the #eventcanvas. Based on this design process, we mapped over a dozen event stakeholders which led us to create 10 design principles for EMEC19.”
Change the way you experience. Experience the way you change!
EMEC19 is an immersive experience that takes place from Saturday 9th until Tuesday 12th of February 2019. Verbeek: ‘With a spoiled audience like ours, we realized that it is difficult to exceed expectations by programming yet another fantastic speaker, an exclusive historic venue or serving the best wines. EMEC19 will change the way you experience, and by doing so, you will experience the way you change as a professional. Creating unexpected experiences that get under your skin and make you want to call your best friend to tell what just happened…that is what we are aiming for.’
As a grassroots organization, MPI is a strong believer in empowering its members and local chapters to excel. Still, it is the first time a local chapter is taking full responsibility on a flagship event like EMEC. MPI’s International Board of Directors (IBOD) played an important role in activating and empowering the European meetings & events community to deliver an ineffable edition of EMEC. A clear sign that MPI keeps moving forward.
More info and registration on www.emec19.com
Mail: seeyou@emec19.com
About the author: Sven Boelhouwer is working as a freelance event and conference organizer. He has been on the board of MPI The Netherlands Chapter for over a decade, being VP of the Educational Committee and Events Team as a volunteer. He is the assigned project manager for EMEC19. Email: sven@emec19.com
InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) Voco brand has made its European debut in Cardiff following the rebrand of the Principal Hotel Cardiff.
The 142-bedroom Voco St David’s, Cardiff, is the second hotel to join IHG’s new upscale brand, following the opening of the Voco Gold Coast in Australia earlier this month.
Three other hotels set to join Voco next year are Oxford Thames, Oxford Spires and the Grand Central Glasgow. 15 more UK hotels are expected to sign up to the Voco brand by the end of 2018.
Nestled between France & Italy, The Principality of Monaco is a mere 35-minute drive or 7-minute helicopter from Nice-Cote d’Azur International Airport which has connections to 100 international destinations and 70 flights a day to Europe’s main hubs. With its 300 days of sunshine and everything in walking distance, it is the ideal year-round destination for events. Sandrine Camia, Director of the Monaco Convention Bureau shares her hidden secrets…
Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer (SMB) manages and owns four hotels – Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, Monte-Carlo Beach, Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort and the Méridien Beach Plaza – with a total of 850 rooms. Combined, these hotels offer 50 meeting and banqueting rooms, 30 restaurants and bars, three spas, a Beach Club, 23 tennis courts, an 18-hole golf course and four casinos to choose from.
Fairmont Monte Carlo offers professional meeting facilities supported by a comprehensive array of professional and state-of-the-art services. The event planners offer expertise in planning events and the hotel’s meeting venues comprise of spaces suitable for an executive meeting for 10 and a professional conference for 900. Meeting venues include flexible meeting rooms, dedicated boardrooms, upscale hospitality suites and one of the largest ballrooms in the French Riviera. Fairmont Monte Carlo also offers certified meeting professionals and a Learning Environment Specialist who are on hand to organise and oversee the critical details that make a meeting great.
Hotel Metropole comprises of 126 rooms, including 64 suites, two Michelin starred restaurants, a pool-side restaurant designed by Karl Lagerfeld, Lobby bar, Spa Metropole by Givenchy and six conference rooms. This includes three meeting rooms featuring interiors by Karl Lagerfeld; Homere is ideal for presentations, Penelope & Ulysse are meeting rooms that can be combined or used separately, The Foyer is perfect for small committee meetings, a reception office or coffee breaks whilst The Theatre can be customised for lots of different types of events.
To facilitate the organisation of each event, the Monaco Convention Bureau offers and delivers a unique, high-value “Monaco Meetings” package, featuring affordable harmonised hotel rates and great benefits and services offering great value for money.
The main conditions for taking advantage of the Monaco Meetings offer are:
RFP has to be sent to your local Monaco Convention Bureau
Significant occupancy of the Grimaldi Forum Monaco
Book a minimum of 1,200 room nights during a minimum of two consecutive nights and two hotels located in the Principality.
Monaco meetings offer includes discounted hotel rooms and meeting space rental, complimentary welcome cocktails for all participants, discounted airport transfers and free access to public buses in the Principality.
Subject to size, length of stay, significant occupancy of convention centre, the Government could also offer financial support in room rental at the Convention Centre. Financial support should be commensurate with the economic impact of the event. There is no minimum or maximum basis, just a tailor-made proposal.
From predictions for 2019 and expenses payments to mental health, the HBAA delivered a packed programme to a capacity audience at its latest Members Meeting, held recently at the Crowne Plaza Solihull.
Providing a global economic report for 2018, Liz Hall from Liz Hall Hotel and Travel Consulting discussed key forecasts for next year. She predicted that the hospitality and events industry will experience modest growth despite challenging macro-economic conditions. The average daily rate (ADR) is expected to increase in 2019, with London experiencing an 0.8 per cent rise, resulting an extra £150 of spending, while the provinces will see an increase of over 1.2 per cent, representing an £70 in additional spend.
Former HBAA Chair and Director of Proposition-Accommodation and Meetings at Capita Travel and Events, Leigh Cowlishaw unveiled Capita’s #THISISMEcampaign, which aims to call attention to and tackling the growing problem of mental health in the workplace. Alison Jenkins from Meetings Club unveiled her venue location platform, which focusses on sharing feedback and reviews.
Tony Morris from the Sales Doctors provided an engaging session on what the top one per cent of all sales professionals do differently. Key habits include ‘becoming the CEO of the first impression’, ‘helping to buy’ instead of selling, developing visual triggers of desired goals, matching your customer’s body language, asking relevant questions, stressing success over experience and continuously asking for referrals.
David Wood from Conferma explored consumer innovations driving change in corporate expenses payments. Explaining how one in three industry professionals experience cash flow issues and 38 per cent experience stress while waiting for business expenses to be reimbursed, David argued that virtual cards and digital payments not only eliminate these problems, but they provide full visibility and transparency for employers on staff travel purchases.
HBAA Tech & Innovation Chair, Caleb Parker, Founder and CEO of Bold, provided an update on the future of Wi-Fi at venues. The results from a recent survey suggested that more than 80 per cent of hospitality and events professionals want a transparent industry standard that is clear on service levels for Wi-Fi. Nearly 90 per cent believe that the industry would benefit from standardised pricing for Wi-Fi that offers a fair market.
Delegates were then split into groups and asked for their thoughts on response time to client enquiries and how the process could be improved. After a brief brainstorm, audience responses included the need to streamline small meetings bookings, reducing the amount of unnecessary options, creating more honesty between agent, client and venue, and ensuring there is greater transparency in budgets. The outputs from this session will be used to inform best practice for enquiry handling, as part of next year’s full review of the HBAA Code of Practice.
Louise Goalen, HBAA Chair says, “Our theme for the year has been Building on Success and the last meeting of 2018, attended by so many members, and delivering valuable, inspirational, and insightful presentations, was the perfect way to round off the year.”
I’ll just send one more email before I leave; phone another customer before they finish for the day; I must remember to pick up a birthday cake for my son’s birthday on the way home; text my partner to remind them to switch the oven on; think about what I’m going to wear to that important presentation to a new client tomorrow; and find the ideal gift for my best friend’s wedding at the weekend. Sound familiar? You feel like the proverbial ‘Eveready’ bunny not entirely sure when the battery will run out! Perhaps you can put off exercise for another day, week, month and surely sleeping over four hours a night and eating regular healthy meals is overrated, right?
You are working hard and playing hard, running on adrenalin and the stress hormone cortisol and some of the time it’s fun and exciting. However, you’ve noticed recently that you are struggling to get a good night’s sleep, the weight is creeping on around your middle and you just can’t seem to throw off that niggling sniffle. You seem a bit snappy and irritable and have found yourself making silly mistakes and having to double check your work as you can’t seem to focus, especially on a Monday morning.
If only you could just achieve a better work-life balance you wouldn’t feel so exhausted!
I realised I was running on empty when half way through a journey from home to a hotel in London, I suddenly woke up from thinking about the million and one things I had to do. Then I realised that I had programmed the satnav with the postcode for a hotel in Slough where I was staying later in the week, some 40 miles away from where I needed to be! Time to take my superwoman pants off and start focusing on my health and wellbeing!
The World Health Organisation defines health as a “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. So how do we achieve this whilst responding to the pressure to deliver results whether imposed by our employer, our clients or ourselves?
It is well documented that if we improve or manage our health and wellbeing, we will perform better, feel happier, full of energy and able to deliver great results for the organisations we work for. Most of us are aware of this, however there can be a real disconnect between knowing what we need to do and actually doing it on a consistent basis.
So, let’s have a look at some of the key areas of wellbeing and remind ourselves that even implementing small changes can improve and make a tangible difference to our overall health and ability to perform at our best.
Exercise really is the magic bullet for keeping us living a long and healthy life. It has been proven that exercise decreases our risk of major illness such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer by up to 50% and the risk of an early death by 30%.
The NHS recommends that we take at least 30minutes of moderate aerobic exercise five days a week i.e. cycling, swimming, brisk walking, and include resistant or strength building activities on at least 2 days per week that work all the major muscle groups.
This doesn’t have to be in 30minute bursts, it can be spread out over the day and if you increase the intensity you can exercise for less time and still achieve the same results – 1 minute of high intensity training (HIT) achieves the same as 2 minutes moderate intensity exercise. If you mix it up then you are on to a winner!
The key to exercise is to find something that you enjoy doing and can incorporate into your daily and weekly routines. And, remember how good it will be with all those endorphins cruising around you body, you’ll feel more relaxed, good about yourself and sleep better. It can take as little as ten to thirty minutes of intense exercise for some people to trigger endorphins.
A good night’s sleep is restorative and essential to our physical and mental health. It consolidates our learning, memory, decision making and protects us against stress, mood swings and mental illness such as anxiety and depression. It also plays a key role in healing and yet, so many of us fail to achieve the recommended 7 to 9 hours a day. This is even more difficult for shift workers. The Sleep Council provide some top tips for gaining control over an erratic sleep pattern:
What we put into our bodies today will dictate our health in the future! If you eat too much chocolate, cake, sugar laden and processed food and take very little exercise, you will put on weight and potentially fall ill through a lack of important nutrients, not to mention predisposing yourself to type 2 diabetes, cancer, arthritis and heart disease.
It may also surprise you to learn that if you are holding fat around your middle it can be an indicator of visceral fat which is particularly dangerous to your health. Chronic stress is often the enemy to storing fat around the middle, caused by too much adrenalin and the stress hormone cortisol. If you are in any doubt about this then have a read of Dr Marilyn Glenville’s book written on the subject².
We need to balance the key nutrients such as protein, fats and slow-releasing carbs and understand that in each case there are good and not so good food sources in each of these three areas. Sugar really is the enemy and as addictive as cocaine (or so I’m led to believe!) It’s the hidden and less obvious sugar in things like bread – hold a piece in your mouth and notice how sweet it becomes – and breakfast cereals. Don’t be hoodwinked by the ‘no added sugar’ labels – this can often mean there is so much in the food to start with they don’t need to add anymore! Low fat food will almost always be high in sugar which they add for taste and low-fat yoghurt is classic for this.
Achieving a healthy diet can be a challenge particularly when your work patterns don’t allow for a lot of routine. One of the keys to overcome this is planning so that you know exactly what and when you are going to eat to avoid getting so hungry that you grab the first thing that comes to hand, which I guarantee will not be an apple!
Comfort eating can be an issue for some and so finding strategies that work is key. If you do succumb, then the worst thing to do is give yourself a hard time and make matters worse. Move on and decide to eat better the following day.
It doesn’t really matter what dietary approach you take i.e. 5:2, low carb, regular fasting, Slimming World, Weight Watchers etc. etc. as long as you can sustain it over the long term and create healthy habits that give you the energy, ideal weight and health that you desire. If you don’t have these three things, then be honest with yourself and make some changes today.
The final topic I’d like to mention underpins all areas of wellbeing. Your thinking has a direct impact on how you feel and therefore how you behave and the actions you take. If you are not feeling good, becoming hyper critical of yourself and others, getting stuck in negative thinking and generally feeling unhappy then its time to take stock and consider what you can do to make some changes.
Positive psychologists suggest that it takes around 7 to 10 positive thoughts to out weigh the one negative. Consider when you last thought or said something positive about yourself or others?
Here are some ideas for getting things into perspective;
My current favourite book is 10 Keys to Happier Living my Vanessa King – full of practical suggestions for increasing your happiness levels and changing the way you think about your wellbeing and happiness.
Finally, there is no health without mental health and if you find yourself struggling to cope, experiencing anxiety, depression or other symptoms that are getting in the way of your normal day to day activity and enjoyment then do not hesitate to seek help from your GP in the first instance. It is just as important to look after your mental health as it is your physical health.
¹ https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
² www.marilynglenville.com/womens-health-issues/fat-around-the-middle/
Cathy Lawson of Maestro Wellbeing is a Mental Health First Aid Instructor, Workplace Wellbeing Consultant, Trainer and Coach. She has has more than 20 years’ experience of advising, coaching and training organisations and their employees on how to increase productivity and performance and reduce sickness and absenteeism by developing a resilient and healthy workforce. Cathy is now delivering Mental Health First Aid England’s approved Mental Health First Aid one-day, two-day and half-day adult courses as well as wellbeing and resilience sessions for public and private organisations.
If you or your organisation are interested in Mental Health First Aid training please get in touch. This is delivered at your place of work or by attending a public course. The next two-day adult MHFA training is being held on the 26 & 27 November at The Pendragon Training Academy in Mansfield. Special rate of £249 per person for the two days for Edge customers which includes manual, workbook, certificate, lunch and parking. (Normal rate £295)
Contact details: Tel: 07771 550541www.maestrowellbeing.co.uk and cathy@maestrowellbeing.com.