As part of the job, I do have to travel around the UK. As a result I am always on the lookout for a bargain particularly when it comes to hotels. The days of ‘lording it’ in a Crowne Plaza or Marriott have gone. Driven by an eye on cost control and being able to offer competitive prices to our clients, oh and make some profit!

What I have noticed recently is a series of training venues offering their hotel style accommodation at very attractive rates. Usually they are the sort of place that’s been a family seat of some wealthy Victorian engineering magnate with more wings to the building than you can shake a stick at. I usually get a room in the ‘stable block’.

It then begs the question why are these places empty?

The first theory is that it’s a blip caused by the global downturn and the well publicised impact on training and development. In an effort to fill spare capacity the venues are selling off spare rooms cheaply. It’s all going to come back when times come good and the 4am marathons in the bar will become the norm for executives under intense training!

Second theory  is somewhat different .It is that organisations have had a good close look at the effectiveness of offsite residential training and said there’s a better way. It could be that they’ve brushed off the old Training Need Analysis and concluded that rather than relatively expensive offsite courses let’s focus on: short one day sessions, on the job and maybe even sprinkled in a bit of E/ blended learning for good measure.

I will take a sample over the next few months and keep you posted. In the meantime I look forward to seeing you in the deserted bars of these venues; otherwise it will be back to looking for bargain deals somewhere else.