There are many great reasons to host important business meetings abroad. They can get your employees out of their comfort zone to stimulate new ideas, and you can use them to show overseas clients that they are important to you. Whatever your reason, planning an overseas meeting presents some challenges. From finding your ideal meeting room to preparing activities, this guide explores the main ones, and provides some practical tips for handling them.
Search Locally For Great Rooms
If you want to book a meeting room in Chonburi, Thailand, for example, you should try searching for จองห้องประชุมชลบุรี (which simply means “book a meeting room in Chonburi”). Why? Because you might find more room choices for your meeting. In countries that don’t speak English as a first language, there may be hotels with excellent facilities that do not use English on their website, so they won’t show up in your search. Translate your query and search again.
If some new results do show up, look for a button to switch to English on the website. Google also usually offers to do it for you. Even if you have no luck here, you can likely still find an email address or phone number to contact. It is likely they have some English-speaking staff. Your meeting room will be just as important as the country you choose, so leave no stone unturned when searching for the best one.
Narrow Down Your Rooms Shortlist
Most people already have a destination in mind when they decide to host a meeting abroad, which is why we’ve assumed you probably do too. That’s the easy part. What’s trickier is finding an adequate room. Searching in the local language will help give you more options, but eventually you’ll have to narrow it down to one. Here are some things to consider to help you choose.
First up, there’s accessibility. Clearly, it’s important to make sure all your attendees can get there easily, so check for reliable transport links. You also need to think about whether it can comfortably seat all your attendees, and whether it has the technology to accommodate all of your planned activities. Make sure there is good Wi-Fi, A/V equipment, and a projector for presentations. It’s also smart to find out whether the venue offers on-site technical and language support.
Plan Travel Yourself
Airports make travelling abroad enough of a hassle on their own, so to avoid additional confusion and delays, you will want to give all attendees clear instructions on how to get to the venue. In fact, it may be even better to coordinate transport yourself. But if this is not possible, provide them with written instructions, ideally in both their language and the local one, that they can save in an offline format.
While you might only give your attendees instructions on how to get to your meeting, something you or your company should do is arrange any visas or permits they need. For short meetings, most countries have fairly relaxed requirements, but if you plan to stay longer and still carry out work, the document requirements may be substantial. Be sure to start this process well in advance of your trip.
Keep Attendees Engaged with Activities
Overseas travel takes a lot of time and effort, and nobody wants to come back feeling like the trip was wasted. Have a clear itinerary and distribute it to the attendees, so that they know what they will be doing at each stage of the trip and can prepare accordingly. This should make the meeting a lot more useful for everyone.
However, you don’t need to fill every second of the itinerary with business activities. Space out more intense sessions to allow the group to recover from travel fatigue, keep mornings light to help them cope with any jet lag, and schedule informal sessions like coffee breaks and dinners. Travelling together is also an ideal time to help your team bond, so try adding non-business activities like tours, swimming, or even skydiving to the schedule.
Make Use of Local Support
In business, we usually prefer to stick with people we’ve worked with before. The problem is that the vendors you would use back home to help organise events might have a tough time organising things in other countries. It’s often a lot simpler to use local support in the host country, as they tend to have a better understanding of local regulations, cultural norms, and logistics.
Countries like Thailand that are globally recognised for their MICE sector offer highly capable local support to help make your meeting a success.
Conclusion
Planning is the name of the game when it comes to overseas meetings, but with the right support behind you and a team that you can trust to follow clear instructions, you don’t have to micromanage every detail. Work smart, not hard, when it comes to organising the meeting, and you’ll have more time to focus on crafting an agenda that meets your goals.
