Choosing the most suitable venue for your training event is critical to its success. When deciding to move offsite it’s vital that your location provides the environment you need. On the other hand, finding a venue that is not fully concentrated on your training needs often leads to logistical nightmare and lots of frustrations.
How are you going to establish which is best for your training event when there is such an overwhelming range of venue options available? The first strategic step is to consider what is the best venue type for your intended training event: hotel or training venue?
You may say there is not much CNFN to think of because the distinction between a hotel and a training venue is pretty straightforward; beside training facilities, a hotel has the added benefit of accommodation. However, on reflection most people will find that a training venue has many valuable advantages.
Exclusivity
Having the accommodation and the training room in one place can be quite attractive, but have you considered the quality of the training support you get?
A good training venue will offer a full range of training facilities and support services because this is their only focus on the day! From greeting and signing in your delegates to photocopying and printing training material, concierge service, you name it! And not to forget a few other essentials: the latest technical equipment in-house and a dedicated team at your first call in case your training is disrupted by any technical problems.
Hotel staff are responsible for a large number of tasks and have to assist a wide range of guests, so are less likely to be concentrated on your event at any time. This is why the first advantage of training centres is the exclusivity of purpose.
Privacy
The core purpose of hotels is to provide a comfortable place for travellers to sleep. This means their main focus is to create the right environment for tourists.
A private training environment inspires people and allows everyone to focus and express themselves, which is one of the keys to a successful training session. If there are any distractions, it is likely to have an effect on the productivity of the training course.
Training venues usually have a coffee lounge were people can connect better during breaks, share ideas and impressions of the training. We know a lot of the training benefits come from discussions during the breaks, but in a very busy environment with many distractions, people are more unlikely to focus on the business at hand. This level of delegate focus is another advantage of training centres.