Robert A. Rauch, CHA, outlines his top 10 trend picks for hotels in the coming year. Among them:

-Look for more capital reinvestment in renovations and refurbishments (I foresee a lot of press releases in my future).

-More online and mobile device booking, and more social media interaction with travelers

-Up but uneven rates and occupancy, where rebounds depend on the destination

What do you see coming next year on the meetings side? Here’s what AMEX thinks is coming.

I’ve been linking to him a lot lately, and today we have a guest post from Andy McNeill, principle and CEO, American Meetings, Inc. His topic du jour is finding the right venue for your event. Take it away, Andy!

It only takes one bad experience at a hotel to know that a site inspection at a property is essential. Even then, ensuring that you ask the right questions while on that inspection can save you a lot of headache and extra work. On one program, our staff actually had to prepare and set a breakfast due to the fact the kitchen and banquet staff did not show up. Needless to say, we were not told of the hotels labor issues prior to our arrival on-site. After that unthinkable experience, we always had a meeting with the food and beverage manager at the site inspection!

Site inspection is more than just visiting the property to view sleeping rooms and meeting space. Visually, a property may look great and fit your meeting needs, but if you scratch the surface a bit more, your expectations in their level of service or food quality may leave little to be desired. During your site inspection remember to verify and be comfortable with the five basics of meeting planning: Location, Facility, Hotel Staff, Meeting Space & Food and Beverage. Follow these tips and your property selection will be a success.

Start with the location. How close is the property to a major airport, and what type of recreational activities does the area afford? Is there shopping nearby and what are the latest hot restaurants? Is this a location your group will enjoy? More importantly, does it fit the overall strategy and objectives of the program? Also, think ahead about the hook you can use for your attendees during the recruitment process. Request the top ten most popular activities to do in/around the hotel from the Concierge before you leave.

Another very important step in the process, before you get to the site inspection, is making sure there are no city-wide programs happening during the same dates as your program. A city-wide is when another group or association is taking over a large block of the hotel rooms in a city. If you find yourself, as a smaller group, competing with a larger group, you will always lose. Stay away from a city-wide situation if you can. If you can’t, then make sure you choose a hotel that is not part of the city wide event. This will ensure you will get the attention you deserve. Make sure you ask about any other groups in-house during your stay. If there are groups other than yours, how will they impact your group?

Next, really delve into the creature comforts of a facility. If the property has thought of the little things, you can bet they have thought of service. What is the availability of guest services, for example how many ATM machines are there, where is the concierge desk, and are there safes for valuables in every room? Are the bathroom fixtures updated and are the rooms comfortable and clean? What types of room amenities are offered? HINT: Ask to see the best room on the property and the worst. A good sales person will show you both. Also always ask for free upgrades for your VIP’s and free rooms as a percentage of your total room block. These are standard negotiations and good to request during the site inspection process.

The hotel staff is critical to ensuring a pleasant experience for any hotel guest. Take the time to notice if you were greeted with a smile and by name either in the valet or at the front desk. How long did you wait before getting your rooms keys? Did you get escorted to your room and given an explanation of the hotels amenities. HINT: Call the operator from your sleeping room and see how many rings it takes until they answer the phone and the tone of the operator upon answering.

A key element of this is a strong concierge’s program. A concierge that is knowledgeable and helpful will make your stay and your attendee’s stay truly memorable. They will know the latest hot spot, how to get on the best golf course at the last minute and always knows how to get to a 24-hour dry cleaner. Remember, we are talking about experience here, and experience is perception. Let me give you an example. A recent trip to the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Nigel in California quickly turned into a nightmare for one client. His luggage got lost and he arrived on a Sunday evening when everything was closed. You can imagine the stress of having no business clothes and an entire conference to attend. The concierge was able to call a local suit shop and arranged to have it open that Sunday evening to get the client a suit, shoes and shirts for the next day. You can imagine the smile on his face when he walked out of that shop. The concierge saved the day. A happy staff makes for happy guests.

Nothing will ruin a meeting quicker than bad meeting space. Are there columns or other obstructions on the meeting rooms that may obstruct viewing? Discuss with your meeting planner how your meeting room set-up fits into this room. Should you arrange classroom style or theater seating? Will table rounds work better for your meeting or half rounds? Make these decisions during the site inspection and take advantage of visually of being on-site where you can imagine and get a true sense of the space. Is there an accessible thermostat in the meeting rooms to easily make temperature changes? If the thermostat is not accessible to your on-site staff, what is the anticipated reaction time for the hotel staff to address and rectify the situation? Are there additional rooms available in the event that the meeting planner needs to provide for last-minute that break outs? HINT: Always negotiate free space and additional rooms for breaks in advance.

Finally, be very comfortable with the property’s ability to offer quality food & beverage service. Review the catering department’s standard group offerings. Confirm tax and gratuities, which will be 26%-35% of your base bill. Challenge the food and beverage staff to come up with unique menus and venues around the property. Also, make sure the room in-service menu meets your specifications for your attendees. HINT: The best way to an attendee’s heart is through the stomach. Offer quality food and suburb customer service for a great experience.

Run through your site inspection with these five areas in mind and you are on your way to a great program. Good Luck, and Happy Planning!

Andy McNeill is president and CEO of American Meetings, Inc., a global event marketing and meeting management company.

So I guess it’s a good thing that’s where I am as of this afternoon! I’m here for the 4th Annual West Coast Life Sciences Meeting Management Forum, a conference we co-sponsor with The Center for Business Intelligence. It’s held at the beautiful Hilton San Diego Bayfront, which is also where it was last year. In fact, I had a touch of deja vu walking into the lobby and seeing all the gorgeous holiday decorations I so admired last year. I have to get some pictures of them.

One thing I did get a picture of already is something that’s sure to be my downfall (or at least, my diet’s downfall): Dispensers in the lobby that dispense a never-ending supply of white, milk, and semi-sweet chocolate:

Sorry for the fuzz factor on the photo. There’s also what looks to be a Santa, reindeer, and carolers also made out of chocolate, though I didn’t break off a piece of them yet to check! I also had the rare opportunity to take a walk around town this afternoon, and it’s fun to see the different spin on the season they have in SoCal, especially compared to where I come from in traditional New England.

Andy McNeill, principle and CEO, American Meetings, Inc., recently discovered a fun resource planners can give to their attendees (and, presumably, their families) to use in their free time while in the Big Apple: The New York Pass. The pass is good for most of the main NYC attractions and, a huge plus in my book, it gives you the super-hero ability to jump ahead in the lines. Read more about it on the AMI blog.

I hope no one has to use this (stay away, Irene!), but I was impressed with a press release I just got from Rosen Hotels & Resorts in Orlando announcing that they were offering $49 rates at its leisure hotels for Florida residents displaced by weather emergencies (with an extra $10 per day if you bring along your pet, and for another $10/night you get two adult breakfast buffets—kids under 9 eat free).

If you haven’t yet seen Grand Rapids, Mich.’s response to being put on Newsweek’s list of the top 10 dying U.S. cities, the city didn’t just lay down and die. It stood up and made what Roger Ebert calls “The greatest music video ever made.” I don’t know about that, but it did make me cry just a little (then again, that song usually does choke me up).

I’d say there’s still some life force kicking in that city. Kudos, Grand Rapids.

(Thanks to my friend in Michigan, Tamara, for the pointer!)

Remember the Brookings report? You know, when Heywood Sanders, professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that the convention center market was, according to an article we published in 2005 when the report came out, “oversaturated, that demand won’t catch up with supply any time soon, and that convention centers, by and large, are not meeting economic impact expectations.”

Not surprisingly, most in this industry, including IAEE, thought he was full of hooey. Eventually it all quieted down, and convention centers—most recently Philadelphia’s—went back to expanding.

But as I read the Boston Globe this morning, I came across this column that cites Sanders in an argument against building a 1,000-room hotel near the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, and eventually doubling the size of the BCEC itself.

When asked why the forecasts for room nights booked due to the BCEC so far have proved to be a bit optimistic, Jim Rooney, who heads the authority in charge of the BCEC, says in the Globe column that the emphasis should be more on snagging the big biotech, medical device, and financial shows the BCEC currently is too small to accommodate (hence the need to expand the center) than on “how many people slept in the Westin.”

I’m no city planner, but I’ve always been of the mind that we should beef up development around the BCEC, including hotels (along with residences, shopping, dining, etc.), to make it more attractive to the groups it already can accommodate but isn’t getting now because the larger shows have to go pretty far afield right now to house all their attendees. I think a new headquarters hotel would be a good use of the millions of dollars in public subsidies it would require, because I do believe in conventions as “financial engines” for cities. Then we can talk about further expanding the center (and hopefully simultaneously continuing development of hotels/shopping etc.).

Boston’s not alone in this fight by any means. Which do you think should come first, the convention center chicken or the hotel/area development egg? In cities like Boston that already have nice, relatively new convention centers but lack the facilities nearby to fully support conventions, I vote for the egg. Am I wrong? Tell me why.

Not just the macro environment of Mother Earth, but the micro environment of your meeting space. I know, I talk about this a lot, but I just saw the photo of the Catalyst Ranch hosting EventCamp 2011’s annual meeting on this The Conference Handouts blog, and I wish more than ever I’d been able to be there. (And then I clicked through to see more pictures, and yet more, and really, really want to go to this place, even if I couldn’t make the conference.)

Poster Patty Keller shares some good thoughts gleaned from a presentation by John Nawn about conference design, including this question I wish every planner would not just ask, but do something about: “Is the environment stale with buzzing florescent lighting and rows of chairs or does it provide a sense of creativity and learning?”

In a totally brilliant grab off recent headlines, the Rockford, Ill. CVB invites people to come hide away in its fair city — even if you’re not a Wisconsin Democratic senator. Awesome.

Thanks to Bill Geist for the pointer!

I don’t normally think of Las Vegas as the greenest of cities, but it sounds like it’s making some serious eco-efforts, including everything from a sustainable Sunday brunch at The Springs Café by Wolfgang Puck to the Las Vegas Convention Center’s 66 percent average recycling rate for shows (the press release says it recovers on average 422 tons of cardboard, 250 tons of plastic, 173 tons of carpet padding, 99 tons of mixed paper, 83 tons of various metals and 58 tons of wood annually).

Thanks to Patti Shock for the pointer.