Formal restaurant, casual bistro, pool, room service, 90 holes of golf when ski season ends, a bakery and gelato shop, wedding bookings, an innovative chef building from a theme and using lots of local produce. Not too unusual for an upscale hotel or resort. But is it a resort? Soundproof meeting rooms, cutting-edge AV, airport-accessible locations, CMP (complete meeting package) pricing. Sounds suspiciously like a conference center. So, what’s going on here?

According to Dolce International, a lot of both. Andy Dolce saw the market opportunity in focusing intently on the corporate meeting experience. Twenty-five years later, the company has 21 unique properties, and they specifically target the meetings niche of the hospitality industry while also catering to leisure travelers, individual business travelers, and event business. All of the properties are customized to their resort locations with everything from a historic castle to an authentic alpine village.

“The majority of people shopping for meetings don’t know the difference between a conference center or a resort or a hotel,” says Cedric Fasbender, GM, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California. “We have to educate them, and that’s not using traditional rack brochures. We have a 360-degree marketing brochure on the web that we send out. We want them to understand we’re not a sterile, university-like environment. We try to get them here. Once they’re here, they’re sold. The way we look at it: hotels sell rooms, and then do everything else. Conference centers sell the meeting experience, and then do everything else. What clients are really looking for is ROI on the meeting.”

And that can be complicated. The usual menu of hotel prices lets clients ease into the cost pool step by step: room rate, a little discount, banquet cost per plate, a little discount, add in the bar, add in the coffee, add in dessert, add in tax, add in meeting breaks, and “oh, you’d like AV equipment?” And they’ve finished their swim before they ever see a final bill all added up.

Seeing Dolce’s “complete meeting pricing” all added together upfront can induce sticker shock. “We’re sometimes deemed expensive, even though everything is included. At a hotel it’s all singled out a la carte. Some are not as familiar with the CMP, so we have a CMP calculator on the website that lets clients put in the charges at a hotel to compare; 95 percent of the time the hotel price is higher.

“I just took our team for a planning session to a hotel. Morning coffee break cost $250 for five of us—$50 a person. I mean how many gallons of coffee would we have to drink?” For those still jittery jumping right into the pool, Dolce prices according to the European plan: just rooms, selling all other items a la carte.

The conference center often has a reputation for being sterile or dull. Twenty-five years ago, Andy Dolce decided to get away from the bland conference center and focus on unique venues with quality.

“Location, the way the properties are built, and the way they flow are all things we focus on,” says Fasbender. We really have a resort mindset. Twenty-five percent of our business is leisure. We have a pool, we have room service, we’re very hotel mainstream. We have the sippy cups, the crayons, the children’s menu. The conventional conference center isn’t like that. But the number one goal is doing meetings great. Is the meeting center conducive to a perfect meeting? Second, is the food.

“We look at what makes food special: variety, seasonality, geographic location. Here we’re a mecca for fruit. We look at visuals: props, serving pieces, and how unique our service and breaks are. We go for the unexpected. It’s about knowing who your customer is. We do business with all nationalities. If you have a large influx of Asians for instance, some might focus on impressing with Asian cuisine. We look instead at impressing with our local cuisine so they can try something new. We look at indigenous products. We’ve got 90 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the country here in the San Joachim Valley. We have a great ranch for local lamb.”

Barbara Rogers, director of marketing and public relations for Dolce International, agrees: “You won’t get the same food at two different Dolce properties. We use local ingredients to create a unique F&B experience. Fresh clambakes in New England, fusion cuisine in California using the chef’s herb garden. Each unique location has its own twist.”

Chefs work with meeting planners from the beginning to find likes and dislikes. Rogers says, “We involve our chef and F&B director in the first meeting with the meeting planner. Those initial booking meetings include F&B. They have a full understanding to make sure the experienceis the best.” Fasbender notes, “We do several site inspections. They look at us and our competitors in a particular region. We get the chef involved to ask likes and dislikes. We find a wide varietyof training seminars. A lot of the young people don’t want stuffy menus. We swap things out for the group’s preference. Some want candy on a break, some want protein. We’re seeing smaller portions and more variety for everything, breaks, banquet hall, everything. We’ll do a trio of proteins, we’ll have oriental spoons and a few desserts instead of a slice of pie or cake. A big focus on seasonality too.”

One unique feature is continuous breaks. If you’re in a meeting and you’re on a roll, and it’s 9:45 the scheduled break, no problem, keep going. “We have kiosks outside the meeting room that are continually refreshed. There’s plenty of product at all times of day.” Menus are on a 14-day rotation, so guests can stay up to two weeks without ever seeing the same set-up twice.

“We have it down to a science in terms of how many will show up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” says Fasbender. The company creates a history from different groups based on their behavior. “Not everyone will appear for breakfast. We know for lunch just about everybody will be there. Dinner we have the most creativity. We include the all-day dining room in the package, or upsell a banquet.” Other options include outdoors, poolside, or smaller groups (up to 35) in the signature restaurant Orlo’s, either prix fixe or a la carte.

“Of course tech is huge for us here in the Silicon Valley. Intel is probably our largest client,” says Fasbender. “Consulting and training programs are definitely up. We see a lot of that business. Pharmaceutical training continues to rise. Others I don’t see as much are government or association meetings. Health care, bio-tech and medical, accounting, and consulting firms—these are what we see most.”

John Paul Boukis is Banquet & Catering editor, HOTEL F&B EXECUTIVE.