By Karen Belasco – Venue Finding Manager

Had a fantastic day out in London with Sian Balsdon our newest Venue Finding Co-ordinator.

It all started off at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum where we had a fantastic show round with Stephanie, the hotel has excellent conference facilities, part of the Academy, a well known brand throughout the Holiday Inn brand.

Our next stop was at the newly refurbished Kensington Close Hotel, which has undergone an extensive refurbishment of all public areas including the Bar, Restaurant and Meeting rooms – we are all very excited as just behind the largest meeting room the hotel have created a small exhibition room which will include plenty of natural daylight. The next phase of the refurbishment will include a number of bedrooms, although some have already been refurbished as they have added over 100 more rooms.

Following on from this we went to the Multi-purpose Millennium Gloucester Hotel which has its own separate Conference Centre. This venue is perfect for any type of conference as the Cromwell Suite can be split down into 9 different sections, with the Orchard Suite holding up to 500 delegates. All bedrooms are well equipped with every amenity that a leisure or business traveller would require.

Our Accor Fam Trip then kicked off in the afternoon with our Wonderful Account Manager Jane Clements.

We saw a range of venues in the Accor brand from Large to Small from one brand to another – Two of the Newest Properties are the Novotel Blackfriars and the Novotel Paddington both very much new regeneration with slick lines and lots of glass with imaginative bursts of colours, both hotels come with hi-tech facilities including self service check in desk’s in the reception area, interactive info system and a Microsoft Surface table, an iPad dining table, Smartboards in 2 meeting rooms and an indoor swimming pool with digital art, what more could you want!!

The Sofitel London St James was next on our list and this is probably one of my favourite hotels in London, with 5 star qualities including The Rose Lounge a must for Afternoon Tea, The Balcon Restaurant with the unmistakably Parisian Twist. All bedrooms come with sophistication and state of the art technology and all with their own distinctive character. The meeting space is very versatile and will excel all of your meeting requirements; it also includes a fantastic 12 seating private dining room.

The Pullman St Pancras is another fantastic property in the Accor brand, not only is it conveniently located with just a short walk from both King’s Cross/St Pancras and Euston Station it includes over 300 bedrooms with 17 meeting rooms to include a 446 seater auditorium with its very own foyer area for all catering.

We finished off at the Novotel London West which is the Flagship of the Accor Group – we dined in their award winning Artisan Grill which has a fantastic Chef’s Table a wonderful addition to your dining experience – food is second to none and well worthy of the AA Rosette that it has achieved through the expertise of Head Chef Roy Thompson.

After a good night sleep in one of the 630 contemporary bedrooms we were shown the excellent conference facilities – The hotel has 32 meeting rooms and they can take anything from a small board meeting up to 1700 delegates theatre style for a full conference with a purpose built exhibition hall – Truly this hotel has everything that you would want.

For more information on any of the above venues or to enquire about our FREE venue finding service, please contact us on 01323 644 644 - we would love to hear from you!