Destination Community -- Portland, OR

After just returning from an inspiring week at Hamilton Park Conference Center in New Jersey, I can’t help but reflect on what a difference it makes to jump start your year with a big kick-off meeting. For our company, Destination Hotels & Resorts, this is the one time each year that we hold a National Sales Meeting – the perfect chance to visit with your colleagues at sister properties, and get tuned-in on the latest and greatest from a corporate leadership perspective. 

I recently had a discussion with Kristin Waymire, Conference Planning Manager Extraordinaire and Scott Warnes Director of Swank Audio Visual both of Skamania Lodge to find out what they are seeing as current trends with meetings and conferences these days. We specifically talked about meeting space set ups, technology, teambuilding and catering. It seems that many groups are trying to find that “new way “of making their event memorable and productive.  It could be that the group comes to our property annually and has the same basic conference every time but wants to change things up so it won’t seem so stale. This might mean something as easy as changing a set from classroom to crescent rounds or flipping the agenda that normally starts with the general session to starting with the teambuilding event.