During the two years since Belle Mer opened its doors as a corporate and social getaway on Newport’s Goat Island, it’s has started to attract a clientele from Boston. That’s because its owner, Longwood Events, is headquartered in Boston and had already built a strong client base there.
“When we’ve been talking to a lot of our clients in Boston, they’d say, ‘We haven’t done much in Newport, but now that you’re there, we’ll have to start,’” said Susan Verge, corporate director of sales and events for Longwood.
Many of the events held at Belle Mer are passive corporate outings – executive dinners and in-house parties that take visitors away from their daily routines, Verge said of the two-room, 500-seat facility.
While the general pace of business is quickening, the time allowed for planning such indoor corporate getaways is shrinking. At least that’s what Marie Bouchard, a 35-year industry veteran who is director of sales and marketing for Radisson Airport Hotel Providence and Johnson & Wales Inn in Seekonk, Mass., is seeing.
Once planned months in advance, many of the events – dinners, team-building exercises, awards ceremonies – are now planned as close as possible to the actual date.
“The trend now is that the corporate market is very last minute,” she told Providence Business News. “People wait to plan today for tomorrow.”
The Radisson’s 11,000 square feet of meeting space, and other hotels near T.F. Green Airport draw a large percentage of the state’s indoor corporate outings, Bouchard said.
“It’s very much a corporate hotel,” she said. “Most of those hotels around the airport are, because people like to fly in and fly out, and have that easy accessibility.”
But the abundance of hotels in the area – there are more than 2,000 guest rooms in the 15 Warwick hotels – creates a healthy competition for those outings, Bouchard said. That’s led to heightened customer service.
“Our goal now is to reply to every client not only within the day but within a few hours,” she said. “Because it’s very competitive and if you don’t talk to them that day, you might not get the booking.”
Most of the corporate events at the Radisson are held by in-state companies, Bouchard said.
“Insurance companies, education companies, universities, big corporations, they all need meeting space,” she said. “Sometimes they want to take their employees off their property to have a different environment. You know what happens otherwise. You get interrupted every five minutes.”
Local businesses see Warwick as a central location in Rhode Island, said Karen Jedson, director of the city’s Department of Tourism, Culture and Development. Outdoor events are held at Goddard Park and the Clouds Hill Victorian House Museum. But Warwick’s hotels and venues are equally as much of a draw for in-state companies, she said.
“Obviously because of our central location, I would assume that companies from South County would want to get out of their area to do this,” Jedson said. “From my perspective, I would also think that corporate outings would be happening here for companies based here that might be bringing in their out-of-state partners.”
That’s true at Cranston’s Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, which can accommodate up to 1,400, holds about 125 corporate outings each year, said Bonnie Blackinton, director of sales and marketing.
The highest amount of out-of-state businesses coming to Rhode Island for passive, indoor events come during the fall. They’re attracted to New England for the changing of the leaves, Bouchard said.
But not all corporate outings are exclusively indoor or outdoor events. At Belle Mer, corporate outings transition between dinners in the chandeliered Island House to outdoor events on the 7.5-acre oceanfront lawn.
“Newport and different parts of Rhode Island that used to be more resort-oriented are becoming more business centered,” said Longwood spokesman Sam Mazzarelli. “So we’re doing more full-blown corporate events, with full-day mixing of indoor and outdoor components.”
Belle Mer is becoming known for combining the two, Verge said. Passive events are paired with golfing at Carnegie Abbey or Newport Country Club, luxury coach tours of the Newport mansions or charter sailing trips.
There is, too, a push to offer more to guests staying overnight, Bouchard said. Many of the corporate events hosted at the Radisson and Johnson & Wales Inn are combined with stay-over packages.
“I’ve been in this business for 35 years and, at one time, if you gave people coffee pots or ironing boards it was all wonderful and extra,” Bouchard said. “Today, people expect all of that and more. You have to keep trying to bring in new amenities that appeal to the markets that you serve.” •
