Help me find someone to help me organize a conference...

grendle

I'm looking for a pretty specific service. I'm trying to organize an international conference, with people attending from some 30 countries, and am trying to pick a venue. I want a company to look at the four countries we have shortlisted, propose specific venues (hotels most likely), and produce estimated cost breakdowns for each. Does anyone know a company that does this?
Thanks!

LewieP's Mummy

What countries are you looking at, how many people? when is the conference? How long is it for? Do you need to organise transport or flights? Meals? More information, please!

grendle

I'm looking at Uganda, Qatar, Burma or Turkey, for about 250 people, a week, probably in February. I don't need anyone to organize transport, but I want to look at the costs of hosting in specific locations in each country, including meals and normal in-country costs associated with a conference.
I'm trying to put together a range of options for executives to use to choose a venue.
Thanks!

LewieP's Mummy

I've thought of a few more questions that might help you narrow down the country:
Where are people mainly travelling from?
Will they be a mix of men and women?
Will there be significant cultural differences? eg. I went to Istanbul for 5 days from the UK, ended up staying in the hotel and not going anywhere as I felt so oppressed by the men - I was sexually assaulted on the street, I met other women who had been whilst on public transport - I had dressed modestly deliberately so as to not cause offence; it was horrible.
Are you looking for single person accommodation or couples or will people share rooms?

One simple solution would be to contact a major hotel chain and ask them to cost it for you.

Shutdown

Talk to an event planner; you don't have to deal with a multi-national one (although their size can help) as some of the smaller local ones can organize it remotely and run it on site when it happens.

I used to deal with event planners daily in my last job; once you go over about 100 people attending it's a huge job to coordinate and I don't question for a moment the amount of work that these people spend making sure these things run smoothly.

Cost will depend on the business but there are different ways that it's calculated.

grendle

The folks are traveling from around 35 different countries, men and women, significant cultural differences.
I don't want someone to organize the conference, I have that in hand, I want someone to manage the bidding process to get the best deal on a hotel to host it. The hotel chain idea is a good one - thanks!