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How To Conduct a Tip-to-Toe Site Inspection
How To Conduct a Tip-to-Toe Site Inspection
Business Boosters

How To Conduct a Tip-to-Toe Site Inspection

by Harvey Chipkin

June 09, 2011



Selecting a meeting site for your client is at the very heart of the event’s success, and it involves comprehensive research and preparation.

Janet Pickover

That includes a thorough site inspection tour, according to Janet Pickover, founder and president of Site Inspections Plus, who has worked for 30 years in event planning and five years as a site selection specialist. The reasons range from being able to see the nicks and chips in a hotel room’s furniture to experiencing a property just as a meeting attendee would.

Even with technology that provides planners with 360-degree views of meeting rooms and other facilities, there is simply no substitute for being there, Pickover said. “There’s so much you don’t see on the Internet.”

A personal inspection should be conducted before a planner commits to a meeting site, regardless of the size of the event. “You should go through every single step in selecting a site. If you have 10 people or 2,000, you should sit there with your master checklist. Everything gets looked at, no matter how many people are going,” she said.

Pickover offered meeting planners the following advice on site inspections, including a do-it-yourself checklist on how to create a customized site inspection evaluation form.

No special treatment: Planners have to think like attendees, and that means they have to experience what the attendee will experience. “I have a colleague who does a lot of meetings, and hotels always want to put her in a suite. She tells them to put her in the same type of room that attendees would be staying in,” Pickover said. In the same spirit, planners need to sample the banquet food, not the restaurant food; they should also check out the retail shops.

Bring the client along: The same venue will affect different clients in different ways. “I have been in the same hotel with two different clients. One will say, ‘I have to get out of here; it’s too busy.’ The other will say, ‘This is fabulous.’”

Take it all in: “Observe, observe, observe, is what I always say. And don’t just pay attention only to your own tour; see if there are dirty dishes sitting in a room or in the corridor. Think about the location of everything in relation to everyplace else. You don’t want to hear an attendee say, ‘If I have to walk one more foot I’m going to cry.’  Check out the elevators to see if you have to wait a long time.”

If it’s broken, ask them to fix it: Don’t be afraid to ask a hotel to fix or change something. “I have sat in meeting room chairs and said ‘I hate these.’ That might be something that can be changed,” Pickover said. “There’s nothing wrong with saying to the hotel, ‘How are you going to handle this?’ They may come up with a good solution. Some get very creative because they want your business.”
               
Do your post trip homework: Your work isn’t over after the site visit. “You have to do your homework. When you return from your trip, call the references provided by the hotel or suppliers. Ask how specific issues were handled. If they had a problem, how quickly was it fixed? How was the onsite communication during the meeting?”

Please see Part one, Preparing the Way for Successful Site Visits, June 2, 2011.


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There’s nothing wrong with saying to the hotel, ‘How are you going to handle this?’ They may come up with a good solution. Some get very creative because they want your business.

Janet Pickover, Site Inspections Plus

CREATING AN EVALUATION FORM

An evaluation form is crucial to the site inspection process. “You will use it to evaluate a hotel’s condition, efficiency, and service,” said meetings expert Janet Pickover. “Everybody has a different one, but you need to have one.”

There are a variety of site evaluation templates available online, but Pickover recommends a more customized do-it-yourself approach. “It’s best to create your own, perhaps by networking with colleagues and sharing ideas,” she said.

Pickover’s overall advice about developing an evaluation checklist is summed up in the acronym CUE: Create It. Use It. Evaluate It. That means that once a form is created, it should be used and evaluated on a consistent basis to be sure the form reflects changes in venues and other developments, including technology.

Here are a few additional pointers on how planners can create a customized site evaluation form:

• Keep it current: Change is endemic to an evaluation form. Pickover said her evaluation form has changed dramatically in recent years to include items like free wi-fi. “I also have a lot of questions about in-room televisions,” she said, “because they might be streaming sessions into the room.”

• Make it adaptable: Pickover recently adapted her hotel evaluation form to inspect a boat for a possible meeting venue. Her revised form was particularly effective for safety and security issues. She consulted with a boat expert for advice on what elements to include. 

• Customize: Develop your own rating system. Pickover uses a “commentary” system where she writes notes regarding every element on the form. Points or another graded type rating system are also useful.

• Be consistent: Whatever your approach, make sure it is consistent and will be intelligible once you return home. “It’s important that you know what your own evaluation means, so you are comparing apples to apples when you visit different hotels,” she said.
   
• Incorporate client needs: Individual client needs should be incorporated into the site evaluation form. If those needs are above and beyond the norm, it’s necessary to find out what they are. Example: sometimes certain products must be used because of the client’s preference – or even because it is the client’s own product. You don’t want Pepsi served at a Coca-Cola event.

• Drill down below the obvious. “Say you have a meeting of 200 people and the hotel has 300 rooms. That sounds fine but what if a lot of those rooms need to be double-doubles because people are rooming together. That’s something you have to know.”

• Compare. Develop a comparison program. Pickover uses an Excel spread sheet so she can compare multiple hotels in every category.

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