While you were wrapping up your last panel event, half of your social media team was given a back tour about the in’s and out’s of the Town and Country Resort. Patti Bareno, the resort’s Senior Conference Services Manager, dove into the details of what goes behind signing up the conference and business from the hotel’s end.

The most important thing I learned on the tour was that even though the resort could have accommodated more guests this weekend, Town and Country Resort finds a balance of catching revenue while balancing a win win situation for the resort and it’s clients.

DISCLAIMER: This blog is an edited version of the notes that I took on my iPad while walking and listening to Patti. The order is random, but the information is interesting.

Look out for the secret fact toward the end. A/C issues…

Conferences start in the sales department. Conferences are typically booked years in advanced. A reason for this is that both ends of the deal have to negotiate terms. Some of these things are amenities and accommodations.

After the sales department does their bit, Patti Bareno( then takes over to ask the details about the people coming.

Some things she needs to know are:

Who should she pay attention to? Who’s in charge? Who’s important? Ex. Speakers, Directors, VIPs, etc.

Here is a list of details I learned that were interesting but I didn’t have much to say about:

• A master account is arranged and pays for breakfast, security, etc.
• A schedule of events is a day by day program and how it’s set up.
• The ballroom is set up days in advanced due to audio/visual technologies.
• WRLC received upgraded audio due to an event that used the equipment on Wednesday and it was cheaper for the hotel to upgrade WRLC rather than paying a crew to tear the equipment down and set up again.
• The crew sets up chairs in a manner that allows the crew to split the ballroom by simply moving the floating walls.
• All the linens for the hotel are stored in one HUGE linen closet. No joke, it’s huge.

Key facts about the kitchens at the hotel:

• The banquet kitchen is used to accommodate the ballroom whether the amount of people ranges from 40 to 4000.
• There are about four sub kitchens.
• Recently, the banquet kitchen served a conference that required breakfast, lunch, and dinner for around 4000 people recently.
• The hotel has a bakery for cakes, desert, pastries and etc.
• There is a special kitchen for cold food production.
• In the cold kitchen, chefs set up baskets that re meant to be delivered to VIP’s.
• We were able to see the kitchen for the hotel’s upscale Trellises cafe. It was grand.
• All 5 restaurants have their own kitchen.

On the tour, I was able to see the front desk, which I wouldn’t have seen because DECA members did not individually check in. I wish I would’ve checked in here as an individual because the hotel drives their gusts along with all luggage to their room in their motorized carts.

The hotel is completely family owned and is now on it’s third generation. This means the first owner was the current owner’s grandfather. As opposed to corporate or franchised hotels, Town and Country Resort can take extra special care of it’s conference guests. For example, they can comp many VIPs with free parking passes and other accomodations.

LOOK OUT! There are Info boards located throughout the Resort that have a map, your location, and a program of events posted daily.
COOL FACT: DECA was the main guest among the guests.

On the map, the brown buildings are guest rooms and the yellow buildings are conference spaces.

The resort has around 1000 conference spaces. To put that into perspective, we only took half the rooms.

LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!

Everything with bookings for conferences are fair and negotiable.

An example is the resort allows guests 15% down slippage with rooms.
That means, if a guest books for 100 rooms and only needs 85 on the day, the resort pardons the shortage and only charges 85 rooms. However, if the gust booked 100 and only fills 70 rooms, they still pay for 85.

A look in personal hospitality:

Patti keeps track of favors others do for her.

DECA agreed to set up a day late so the resort could book an event that generated high revenue for the resort.

She’s happy to accommodate those who accommodate her.

More quick facts about the hotel:

• Town and Country Resort was the first convention center/hotel In California.
• Employees eat in their own dining room for $1!
• From the hearing impaired, the visually impaired, to the physically handicapped; the resort accommodates anyone needing a little bit more
• The resort has the ability to receive freight from it’s 2 loading docks.
• GES decorated our exhibit.
• The next convention is for the Dairy Farmers of America.
• The marine core ball had a dance floor, those men love to dance.

We got a sneak peak into the men and women of the resort fix major problems. John, the Chief Engineer, let us see his workspace and told us about his work.

“Anything breaks, we can fix it.” -John

SECRET FACT!!!
The ac unit in the ballroom was broken today . The ac tech ordered the replacement part and fixed it between 12:15 and 2:30 while we went to lunch.