Why do people go on business trips?
Despite the widespread availability of videoconferencing technologies, which allow you to connect quickly with anyone anywhere in the world while staying comfortably in your office, they do not appear to be decreasing the number of business trips made in Italy and Europe.
It is important, then, to ask why this business practice, which still represents a significant cost for companies, is still so widespread and what the underlying reasons are that continue to push companies to send their employees around the world quite frequently.
The answer, in our opinion, is rather simple: although information can now be shared via the network in an instant and with the utmost simplicity, there are a number of more complex signals which go beyond mere technical data and that can only be discerned by meeting in person. For example, when a technician visits a production line in an industrial plant, they observe details that could not be conveyed in any way via the Internet and interact with local staff, meaning they obtain substantially more data than what they could have read in an email.
In a face-to-face meeting, then, the impressions gained about the different participants, from both a human and professional point of view, are often as important as the technical or economic information that is exchanged.
Finally, we must not forget that the transport of goods also requires movement of personnel and that some extremely specialised work requires the professional to go and perform it on site, so making a continuous series of trips necessary.
For these reasons, and perhaps for many others, business trips are still the order of the day and AKNO, starting from its decades of experience in the field of industrial construction, has decided to build hotels specifically tailored to this type of clientele, even if, as we will see, these facilities are often used for other occasions.
AKNO’s solution: The Ibis Styles Hotel
How do AKNO Ibis Styles hotels differ from classic hotels in industrial estates? In practically every way, we can say. To begin with, we can mention that AKNO Ibis Styles hotels are integrated with Business Parks and so form a unique synergy between workplaces, logistics excellence and places to relax and meet.
The idea behind the construction of our hotels is to provide quality hospitality, integrating different services: accommodation in comfortable rooms, high level catering and the opportunity to relax in the gym, the pool, in a bar open 24/7 or going shopping in the stores in the hotel annex.
In addition, we have provided modular meeting rooms in all our facilities. These can accommodate up to 100 participants in various types of business meetings while paying particular attention to detail and quality of the location.
Finally, great attention has been paid to the green areas that are always plentiful around our hotels. A well-kept garden with tree-lined avenues, fountains and gazebos, is not just an optional ornament, but makes a fundamental contribution to improving the quality of our guests’ stay and our employees’ work.
Hospitality and productivity
Many of us, presumably, have had the depressing experience of staying in a traditional hotel for business trips, perhaps located on an industrial estate. Typically, they are anonymous structures, not very well looked after and, above all, they are isolated in the middle of motorway junctions, warehouses and other desolate areas.
Anyone who has had this experience knows that, after a day of work, away from home, the idea of eating in a mediocre hotel restaurant and then having to shut yourself in your room because there is nothing to see or do in the vicinity is certainly a depressing prospect.
Experts in the psychology of work tell us that this sense of desolation is not only humanly unpleasant but also represents a threat to productivity and the quality of the professional activity undertaken.
That’s why our well-kept and well-furnished rooms, our quality restaurants, the bar where you can drink a cocktail at any time, the swimming pools, gyms, the green areas and everything we have been working on in recent years to make your stay at AKNO Ibis Styles hotels as pleasant as possible, are not only a luxury that we offer our clients, but also a real and tangible support to work quality and business productivity.
Furthermore, it should be remembered that a company which organises meetings in a quality facility, where guests feel at ease, or that sends its employees to stay in a prestigious hotel equipped with high level services, improves its internal and external image, thus strengthening the company brand.
Not just business trips
Our hotels are particularly well-kept and are proving to be an ideal location for many private events, from ceremonies to parties, which can be held a short walk from the city in a park with a swimming pool, an excellent restaurant service and, of course, the opportunity of a comfortable overnight stay for guests who have travelled a long distance.
Our Hotel in Milano Est Settala, for example, is increasingly used to host wedding, communion or baptism parties, birthday parties, graduation parties or private parties in its well-kept park, which has a children’s playground, a pond and a swimming pool around which you can organise a barbecue or a relaxing and delicious brunch.
In a nutshell, an AKNO Ibis Styles hotel is a place of quality hospitality, where the excellence of available services comes from our experience and the work of professional and always up-to-date staff. The design of these spaces, entrusted to our architects, always puts the guest first, considering their needs and desires, in facilities built with the utmost care for architectural quality and respect for the environment.
