Successful Meetings - March 2008 - 46

03.08 &SPACES Get Stylin’ Road warriors may find comfort in the reassuringly consistent standards of brands and chains, but occasional meeting attendees, flying or driving in for a quick small meeting, are more likely to feel oppressed by spending their free time in a hotel room. Such stays can be enlivened by selecting a boutique hotel for the meeting location—a choice made easier by the fact Inside that these properties are increasingly > Luxury Las Vegas ..PAGE 50 common throughout the U.S. > New York City . . . .PAGE 54 One such is the 176-room NYLO > Houston . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 58 Plano, which opened in December in > New Orleans . . . . . .PAGE 60 the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex > Quebec City . . . . . .PAGE 62 planned community of Legacy. In the > Bahamas . . . . . . . . .PAGE 64 NYLO’s lobby, pod chairs hang from high ceilings, and its chandeliers are made of > Oahu & The Big Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE 66 glass, shaped like antlers. According to A room at The Lofts in Columbus, OH; below, lobby art gracing Fort Lauderdale’s Gallery ONE Doubletree PLACES > Florida Keys . . . . . .PAGE 70 more color, light, and really just more fun.” In New York, the 186-room Gramercy Park Hotel (the self-styled “haute bohemian” boutique opened by Ian Schrager in 2006) has a private roof club and garden, with a unique retractable roof 16 stories above the city, that attracts a variety of meetings “from technology and banking and law to publishing and fashion . . . the range is quite vast,” according to Emilie Able, director of special events. Some boutiques manage to be both idiosyncratic and “branded,” like the 231room Gallery ONE Doubletree in Fort Lauderdale, FL, which is part of the Hilton family. The Gallery ONE features original art throughout as well as more than 8,000 square feet of meeting space. Likewise, the 44-room Lofts Hotel, in Columbus, OH, is attached to a 377-room Crowne Plaza, John Russell, CEO, NYLO Hotels, suburbia with substantial corporate headquarter presence is now ripe for boutique development; and business is brisk. Since boutiques enjoy being different, it follows that meetings held in them will be different as well. Located across the street from California’s Santa Monica Convention Center is the 163-room Viceroy, part of Kor Hotel Group’s growing stable of trendy properties. People who hold meetings there, says Director of Sales Kate Jerkens, “are looking for a hotel that is not ‘cookie cutter’ and space that lends itself to with which it shares 8,000 square feet of meeting space. Columbus Hospitality manages both, but the Lofts, says spokesperson Kathryn Burton, “is unique in its decor and settings.” When it comes to hosting meetings, boutiques make up in versatility what they may lack in purposebuilt meeting space. Says the Viceroy’s Jerkens, “The most amazing meetings have been the ones where the client takes over the space and makes it their own, [such as to] set up the room more lounge style, and do their breakouts in a cabana, with MARCH 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS 46

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - March 2008

Successful Meetings - March 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Suppliers
On the Record
Research
Associations
Planner's Spotlight
Management Matters
Mouth for Sale
Meetings Law
Pre-Event
Pre-Event
Tools of the Trade
On Site
Quick Tip
Critical Conditions
A Family Affair
Conference Centers We Love
CSM of the Year
Places & Spaces
Luxury Las Vegas
New York CIty
Houston
New Orleans
Quebec
Bahamas
Oahu & Big Island
Florida Keys
Gurus

Successful Meetings - March 2008