Finding the best location for your next company event

What’s the best company event you’ve ever attended? Maybe it was an unforgettable offsite in nature, a museum tour that helped you re-discover your own city, or a party with colleagues in a beautiful park. Chances are, part of what made that event so memorable was its location. 

By choosing the right venue for your company event, you can create a pleasant atmosphere that’s conducive to relationship-building and teamwork. But finding a place that suits everyone can be tricky—and as a travel planner or admin, you’ll also need to be mindful of your budget.

Luckily, there are solutions that can help. In this guide, we’ll explain how to find a venue that works for everyone, and how you can easily coordinate travel to your event location. 

Why is finding a great location and venue for your event so challenging?

As remote work continues to grow in popularity (around one-third of jobs in high-income countries could be done from home, according to the World Bank), many teams are now distributed around the country, or around the world. And distributed teams have a greater need to travel for internal events—TravelPerk data show that the number of companies taking these types of trips has doubled since May 2021.

However, planning an event for a distributed team can be a challenge. You’ll need to choose a location that’s fair and works well for everyone. If team members have to fly into your event from many different places, group meetups and logistics will be difficult to organize. You’ll also need to consider the costs: Flying a team of five to a remote location is much more feasible than a team of fifty. 

Even if your team isn’t distributed, there are still many factors to take into account when choosing a location or venue for your event.

You’ll need to consider:

• The number of event participants
• The price (both of the venue itself, and of travel/accommodation in the chosen place)
• Convenience of the venue location
  • Are there easy transit options available?
  • Will you be able to organize group transportation (for example, coach buses to the venue?) Or will participants make their own way there?
• The weather
  • What’s the climate like in the chosen location? Is the venue indoors—if not, what’s your plan for cold, unpleasant weather?
• Timing
  • Does the event coincide with any public holidays in the chosen location, which might affect crowding or opening hours? 
• The type of event
  • Some events (like team building events or all-hands meetings) may require a specific type of venue 
• Participant needs and preferences
  • Be sure to choose a state-of-the-art venue that is suitable for all attendees, including those with specific needs (limited mobility, dietary restrictions, etc.)

Before choosing a location, it’s a good idea to conduct a company-wide survey to find out what would work best for all participants. That way, you can better understand what everyone would like to do.

After reviewing the survey results, start researching and contacting venues. With participant preferences and your event budget in mind, make a list of possible choices, and reach out to the venues with any questions you may have.

Once you have all the information you need, go ahead and make your venue bookings. Preferably, you should do this well in advance, to make sure you can secure the venue you want. At this point, you should also begin to think about booking travel for event participants. 

What kind of solutions exist for booking business travel to your event? 

To get the best venue for your event, you’ll need to set aside enough time and money to find something your team will love. This might mean finding efficiencies in other areas—like business travel.

Booking event travel for a group can quickly get complicated. There’s a lot to think about when planning your event, from making hotel and transport bookings, to keeping track of attendees and staying within budget.

Fortunately, there are several ways you can save time and money on event travel, streamlining the booking and organization process so you can focus on finding the best venue.

Here are a few of your options:

Recommended solution: Travel management software platforms

Travel management software platforms can help you easily book event travel and coordinate participants. For example, TravelPerk Events is a travel management solution specifically designed for company event bookings. You can use the software to:

• Invite attendees to events
• Track responses and the status of bookings
• Share trip details (such as attendee names, agendas, and itineraries) with participants
• Keep everyone updated if plans change
• Easily view all attendees’ travel plans, including bookings and arrival/departure times

By using TravelPerk, you can save a significant amount of time. Some customers report saving 3-4 hours per day, or up to 75% over their previous booking methods. TravelPerk Events will keep all your event information centralized, so you can avoid spending time sorting through long email chains. You can also use it to set up automated travel policies, so travelers will only be able to book within policy—no need to send reminders. 

In addition, you can use TravelPerk Events to save money. Keep track of your total costs at a glance using the platform. Or take advantage of discounted group rates, special deals on hotels, and the FlexiPerk program, which will allow you to save an average of 40% compared to traditional flexible fare bookings.

These efficiencies mean you won’t have to compromise on your venue and location—use the extra time and money to find something your team will love. 

Corporate agencies or local travel agents

Some companies choose to book travel through corporate travel management companies or local, consumer-facing travel agencies. Travel agencies can take some of the work of travel booking off your hands, while also finding group rates and booking activities if needed. However, hiring a corporate travel agency may be more expensive and time-consuming than using a travel management software.

Many corporate travel agencies require strict, yearly fixed contracts and have complicated fee models. These may include extra fees for certain types of transactions (like booking over the phone).

In addition, coordinating group travel with a travel agency can take a lot of time. Every time a traveler wants to get an update or make a change, they’ll have to contact the agency again. And most agencies don’t offer 24/7 in-house customer support. Travelers may find themselves waiting a long time for their questions to be answered, or dealing with an offsite representative who isn’t able to help. All this wasted effort will take valuable time away from your venue booking process.

Consumer booking websites/self-booking

You also have the option of booking all your event travel via consumer websites (such as Skyscanner or Booking.com). This choice may make sense for very small groups, or for companies who are just getting started with business travel.

However, when it comes to event travel, self-booking can be significantly more complicated and time-consuming than using a software package. If you have a medium or large group (6-20+ people) traveling to an event, trying to coordinate self-bookings for everyone is often impractical. You may also end up spending more money on consumer fares, missing out on the deals and discounts a professional travel management platform can offer.

Communication difficulties can delay things further and cause problems within the group—which isn’t ideal when traveling to an event focused on team bonding and camaraderie. Travel booking challenges take resources away from the things that are most important to your team during a company event: spending time with colleagues in a great location and venue. 

To see how TravelPerk Events can help you streamline your group travel management process, leaving you with more time and money to spend on finding the perfect venue, contact us to see our platform in action today.