Landlubbers or Water Waders: Hotels Versus Cruises and What Event Planners Should Know
When planning an event, hotel banquet halls are usually the first venue that comes to mind. Water-based rooms for meetings or even vacations seem impractical or too much like a dream, but how do cruises compare to their land-locked counterparts? Consider how a 7-night full-charter of the Silver Spirit sailing from Barcelona to Monte Carlo stands up to 7-night program at 5-star properties in the Mediterranean.
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and in this area, cruises have hotels beat. When booking a cruise, meals and snacks are included, and dining is available at ocean-view restaurants, terrace and poolside, and even in your room via all-hours room service. Beverage service is part of the package, including not only non-alcoholic beverages but also wine, spirits, and champagne all around the ship. Some hotels include a breakfast, usually continental, but otherwise, full breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks for the entire time are out-of-pocket for the traveler or event provider. Open bars are unheard of for hotels without a huge cost to the event planner, but most cruises, including Silver Spirit, host at least a one-hour open bar with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. In addition to the open bar and beverage service, Silver Spirit offers complimentary items via in-room bars and beverage cabinets. Hotels often offer the same service but with high fees per item.
The real reason to host an event away from home or take a vacation is to experience somewhere new and find thrilling entertainment you just can't get near home. Hotel dwellers get a nice trip to a single location, but if they want to see more than one destination, they need to pack up and take multiple flights, which takes time and can dip deep into the wallet. Silver Spirit denizens get to stroll through multiple locations without having to re-pack or drop a single extra dollar. Top-floor hotel guests find stunning views of their host cities, usually from their balconies. Cruise guests, however, find ocean views from every suite, almost all with their own private teak verandas. Entertainment options are abundant for those staying at hotels in big cities, but shows and concerts can drain the accounts, especially when hosting events for large groups. Cabaret-style shows, films, and eye-popping entertainment are behind every lounge door on a Silver Spirit cruise, and cover charges are nowhere to be found.
Perhaps dining, libations, and the roar of an entertained crowd are not top of the list for event planners hosting meetings and corporate events. In this case, meeting space and costs of equipment are priority. Most hotels offer good-sized rooms for meetings, and rates vary for room rental, setup fees, and use of audio-visual equipment, usually upwards of $3,000. Food and beverage service during breaks are a separate cost, and the more people at the event, the higher the charge. For meetings on Silver Spirit cruises, the room rental fee is a nice, round zero, and standard audio-visual equipment is included in the non-existent charge. Even more, meeting breaks are complimentary for those hosting corporate events on board.
With so much included in the base ticket of a cruise, it would make sense for the cost to far exceed that of a hotel room, even a 5-star top-of-the-line suite. Initially, it seems this is where the hotel wins over the cruise, but consider how it all adds up: hotel room plus food, drinks, entertainment, meeting room rental, equipment, gratuities, tax, and other costs bring the total to around $5,200 per person. For cruise guests, all those add-ins are included, bringing the cost to around $4,025 per person. At over $1,000 in savings per person, if your event hosts 540 guests, that's an eye-popping $635,000 that never leaves your wallet. Not to mention the convenience of having so much of the event preplanned and provided without the extra footwork a land-based meeting requires.
How many corporate events and meetings find participants walking away starry-eyed, awestruck, and unable to stop gabbing about the unforgettable experiences they had? With cruise-based meetings, especially those on Silver Spirit cruises, “another day at the office” translates to “out-of-this-world experiences.” And that's a language we all would like to speak.
