6 Best Places to Hold a Business Meeting

The Return of In-person Business Meetings ves

In-person business meetings are making a strong comeback, and now is the time to be intentional about where and how you meet.

While technology during 2020 proved that teams can work effectively from anywhere, it also highlighted what virtual meetings can’t replace: real human connection. When companies returned to the office, most did not go back to the old way of working full-time in one location.

Instead, businesses embrace hybrid work, splitting time between remote work and in-person collaboration in offices or coworking spaces. Others fully went remote, building distributed teams connected from anywhere in the world.

What does this mean for you?

You have more flexibility than ever, but choosing the right place to meet in person matters more than ever, too.

Why In-Person Meetings Still Matter

Video calls are convenient, but when it comes to building trust and getting results, in-person meetings still have the edge.

Face-to-face conversations lead to clearer communication, stronger relationships, and better outcomes. In fact, in-person requests are up to 34x more effective than email, and studies show that team performance improves significantly with more face-to-face interaction.

That’s because meeting in person creates connection, focus, and engagement—things that are hard to replicate on a screen.

The takeaway: where you meet matters.

While your office may work for internal meetings, it’s not always the best setting for client or high-stakes conversations. The right environment can elevate your professionalism and help you make a stronger impression

6 Top Business Meeting Location Options

So, for businesses and professionals seeking to schedule an in-person meeting, what are the top business meeting places and most effective business meeting locations to consider?

Coffee Shops

Coffee shops are convenient and are great places to meet for “social” meetings. It is quite tempting to start a business meeting with a cappuccino, macchiato, or cortado, and coffee shops are well-known locations—their familiarity puts colleagues, clients, and prospects at ease. But for businesses and professionals seeking privacy and collaboration, coffee shops are not the best placet to hold a business meeting.

Coffee shops can fill up during certain times of the day; you can spend valuable time waiting in line to place an order and securing a table. Confidentiality is problematic as well; you never know who might be eavesdropping on your private conversations or looking over your shoulder to see what you’re displaying on your laptop screen. Plus, for a crowded coffee shop, the surrounding noise can be a distraction or even disrupt meetings.

For meetings that last very long, you likely find yourself getting up regularly to purchase drinks and food to justify the time spent occupying space in the coffee shop. And for those waiting for a table, you may find yourself the focus of irritated glares. In addition to the above, you don’t have any presentation or collaboration tools often needed to facilitate a productive meeting. 

Restaurant

A restaurant is a good place for a meeting if the objective is to develop a personal or social rapport with those attending. You need to be comfortable with the attendees and normally have an established connection with them. You need to know enough about them to choose a restaurant with food and beverages that coincide with the diets and preferences of the attendees.

If you’re planning to cover business details, then a restaurant likely isn’t a good choice. Like coffee shops, restaurants can be noisy and lack privacy. Meeting attendees may not want to cover business while eating and if you stay past your welcome, servers and patrons waiting for a table to open will become frustrated and even angry. While restaurants can work in some cases, they are not always among the top business meeting places for productive discussions.

Museum Meeting Rooms

Some museums have meeting rooms that you can rent for a few hours or for a day. They typically come with free Wi-Fi and presentation capabilities. The privacy issues that plague a coffee shop or restaurant don’t exist for museum meeting rooms. They also offer attendees a relaxed environment and change of scenery. 

Yet, museum meeting rooms have their disadvantages. They can be relatively expensive to rent. Presentation and collaboration tools can be lacking as well. Most museum meeting rooms simply aren’t designed with business facilitation in mind—projectors, white boards, flip charts, fax machine, photocopy machines, and other tools. 

Library Meeting Rooms

Library meeting rooms are a great resource and often conveniently located. But they have many of the same issues as museum meeting rooms. Libraries are also quiet places, and participants must be wary of speaking too loudly and interacting when outside the meeting room. Asking a client or prospect to meet at a local library can also convey a lack of professionalism.

Hotel Conference Rooms

Hotel conference rooms are often a meeting location for businesses and professionals. One upside for hotel conference rooms is that meeting participants who are from out of town can be guests at the hotel at the same time. Hotel conference rooms, however, are typically expensive—upwards as 50% more than rented meeting rooms. You have less flexibility when booking hotel conference rooms, which normally require several hours or even a full day to reserve. Guests and service personnel can create a lot of surrounding noise that can distract meeting participants or even interrupt business meetings. The availability of fax machines, photocopiers, and other services doesn’t exist in some instances. Finally, free Wi-Fi may not be a seamless process in a hotel conference room; free Wi-Fi may be subpar and special hotel club access may be needed to get better Wi-Fi performance.

Rented Conference Rooms

Rented conference rooms are often the best place to hold a business meeting for professionals who need flexibility, privacy, and a polished environment. On average, they are half the cost of a hotel conference room. They are easy to book. For rented meeting rooms like those from Davinci Meeting Rooms, you can do so online, both from a standard web browser or mobile apps. You can check out photos of different rooms and evaluate them based on room size, location, availability of presentation and collaboration tools, and administrative services. You can also reserve food and beverage catering services. 

Rented meeting rooms are in locations that result in great first impressions. They also have lobby greeters who can answer questions from meeting participants about parking, local restaurants and hotels, restroom location, and more. 

Find the Best Business Meeting Location Today

All the above options have a use case. The best place to hold a businesss meeting in many instances, however, is rented meeting rooms. There is a long list of use cases—some industry-specific and others that are industry-agnostic: client meetings, staff meetings, board meetings, partner meetings, project collaboration, legal dispositions, employee training, client training, happy hours, workshops, and more. Ready to elevate your next meeting? Browse available spaces and get a quote today to secure a professional, fully equipped meeting room. 

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence. LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn Website: www.tirocommunications.com