The latest event to occupy my time is for PricewaterhouseCoopers and is taking place at the Grand Hyatt Berlin http://berlin.grand.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp.  I am really looking forward to this event as we have two dinners outside the hotel and a sightseeing tour with a difference, which always livens up the organisation!  One dinner is at a traditional German restaurant which brews it’s own beer.  Unfortunately they do not have their own website but reviews boast of ‘excellent food’ and ‘a great selection of beers’.  When an event consists of delegates from all over Europe, part of our job is to help find exciting venues that will give them a taste of the city they are in.  For 270 people this isn’t always easy!

Our second venue is the OpernPalais which provides a completely different experience in the historical quarter of Berlin.  http://www.opernpalais.de/.  A drinks reception on the lawns looking out at the State Opera and the Unter den Linden will be followed by dinner in the sumptuous surroundings of the Princess Rooms.  They also have a great selection of local cakes which we may well have sampled when we were last there!

The event that we hope will really make the social aspects memorable is the Trabant Rally!  Delegates will be given the chance to drive themselves and their colleagues around the sights of old East Berlin in these fun cars which were a real symbol of the old Berlin.  

The actual venue for the conference - the Grand Hyatt Berlin is a modern, minimalistic hotel with high service levels and high quality conference rooms.  I really like the hotel and I am sure they will really look after us when we are there.

The neutral colours and open spaces are perfect for this training event and our German client is very pleased with their choice, however I have to admit I am a more traditional girl at heart and love hotels which give you their own brand of ‘old-fashioned hospitality’ as the boss would call it.

So I am looking forward to Berlin and will enjoy learning more about the history of the city http://www.berlin-tourist-information.de/, but I will also be looking forward to my next challenge and will be hoping for a more traditional venue……….Four Seasons Dublin http://www.fourseasons.com/dublin/, Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich http://www.bayerischerhof.de/ (where incidentally we are also running a conference for Association of Corporate Counsel Europe) or maybe I should aim higher to the Waldorf Astoria New York! http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/waldorf/index.jhtml.

Maybe research has been done on the popularity of traditional versus modern hotels, I am sure it generally sparks debates!  I’d be interested to know what people think!