What Retreat Leaders Look For When Booking a Venue

Retreat leaders book groups, not rooms, and they look at a property very differently from a holiday guest. They are responsible for ten or twenty people, a programme and a budget, and the venue is the one fixed point the whole itinerary is built around. A venue that answers their questions before they ask them is a venue that gets the booking.

This is the checklist we teach retreat leaders to run when they scout. If you own or manage a hotel, villa or retreat centre, it is also a useful way to see your property through their eyes, and to fill your quiet weeks with the groups that are looking for somewhere like yours. It is part of why hotels and venues join the same programs as retreat leaders: each side learns what the other needs.

If you run a small or medium hotel, the middle option is where you are most likely to be found. What decides it is the checklist below.