March 28, 2017
1 Hotels turns its eye on business travelers
Hospitality brand 1 Hotels is giving its guests a more refined way of holding meetings thanks to a new initiative ideal for business professionals.
Meaningful Meetings aims to provide customers with a luxurious and fully-equipped meeting option, with food, breathing exercises and a meditation presentation. This move shows how 1 Hotels is embracing the “business-leisure” movement by allowing its discerning guests to conduct their work lives with the same level of opulence as their personal lives.
"The launch of our Meaningful Meetings program will really transform the way we host group sessions at our hotels," said Kane Sarhan, vice president of brand for 1 Hotels.
"Meaningful Meetings was born as a result of us observing the amazing way companies such as Google, General Mills and Holstee conduct their internal meetings and the desire to develop a program that completely changes the meetings experience for our guests," he said.
Meaningful Meetings
Many affluent individuals in the business world are accustomed to luxury products in their home and on their own free time, but there is a growing trend in bringing the luxury level of quality and aesthetic to work hours as well.
This growing trend, “bleisure,” as it is sometimes known, a hybrid phrase of business plus leisure, has been popping up in a variety of places as those at the highest levels of business come to expect the same level of luxury at work as they do at home.
1 Hotels is capitalizing on this trend with the introduction of Meaningful Meetings.
A 1 Hotels meeting space
Meaningful Meetings are a new offering from the hotel brand that seeks to offer a luxurious setting for business meetings with an emphasis on relaxation and meditation.
The offering was developed in partnership with Holstee, a company that specializes in mindfulness.
Starting with its Central Park location in New York, 1 Hotels will soon offer high-quality conference rooms, providing customers with three styles of meetings: Zen, Creative and Focused, depending on the intention of the meeting.
Throughout the meeting, 1 Hotels staff will offer guided mindfulness exercises and food designed to increase energy and productivity.
After Central Park, 1 Hotels locations in South Beach, FL and Brooklyn will be the next target for Meaningful Meetings.
Business and leisure
1 Hotels effort towards turning business meetings into a more luxurious experience is not without precedent.
Most recently, the Ritz-Carlson took its own step in that direction with A Meeting of the Senses, a similarly curated meeting space that provides customers with food and guided exercises.
A Meeting of the Senses program selects all details of events, such as food, cocktails, individualized itinerary and wellness breaks, to fully immerse participants (see story).
This also opens the door for luxury brands that target luxury consumers as they travel internationally for business – a demographic that has become increasingly profitable for brands in the last few years.
A 1 Hotels meeting space
International business travelers (IBTs) comprise 5.2 million people in the United States and account for up to $20 billion in annual spend, numbers that make them at least as valuable as affluents and millennials for marketing campaigns. These consumers are largely unfazed by traditional advertising, however, meaning that brands will need to perfect digital and mobile advertising to more effectively tap into the pool of wealth (see story).
With Meaningful Meetings, 1 Hotels is hoping to court those lucrative international and domestic business travelers who want to turn their corporate meetings into luxurious affairs.
"This is just another example of how the 1 Hotels brand is providing its guests with inspirational and thoughtful experiences," 1 Hotels' Mr. Sarhan said.
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