Seminars: drawing up specifications

This type of event lends itself to standardisation and the drawing up of specifications for distribution to service providers. "The best way to get good prices is annual planning rather than piecemeal negotiation".recommends Jérôme de Béru, MICE Director at Egencia. In this context, the role of the travel agency includes helping companies to define their needs in terms of the location of the seminar venue and the capacity of the meeting rooms. "For example, a company based in the Paris region wishing to bring in staff from the provinces will prefer a facility located close to the airport, continues Jérôme de Béru. For each seminar, it's a good idea to define the capacity of the plenary room and any sub-committee rooms". For the study day, it is also useful to define the essential equipment, for example an overhead projector and a microphone, as well as reception products such as notepads, pens, post-its, paper boards or felt pens. As far as catering is concerned, you should consider specifying whether employees have lunch or dinner on the premises. "With a view to managing professional expenses, we have just approached both listed and non-listed service providers about hosting ten seminars over one and a half days this year, explains the executive secretary of a sales director in an SME who prefers to remain anonymous. As for each event, we are expecting around thirty participants from all over France, so our hotel accommodation requirements should be in the region of four hundred rooms". To estimate this volume of overnight stays, the company took into account the place of residence of the participants: those travelling for more than six hours, i.e. around twenty people per event, generally need an extra night before or after the seminar.