Getting a conference room for an efficient meeting with enough room isn't difficult outside of holidays and special events, but not every hotel has the same infrastructure or staff. The types of presentations being held, the equipment in use and the quality of the presentation can all change if there's not enough support or nothing for your own support to work with. As you look for your next presentation venue, consider a few Information Technology (IT) problems to plan against ahead of time.

Cooling Systems During Hotter Months

Overheating computers is a problem that just doesn't go away, especially in areas of America's South. Georgia and South Carolina are known for being muggy and hot, and although places like Arizona and New Mexico have dry heat, it can still be too much for computers without proper ventilation.

Don't assume that air condition will be sufficient, or that it will be perfect. An unlucky power outage may lead to laptops surviving on battery power, but suffering slow performance as the air temperature heats up. 

In these cases, your hotel needs to have a cooling plan. A few desk fans aren't enough; like an overheating data center, there needs to be enough powerful fans to change airflow and displace hot air. If you're showcasing powerful equipment and air conditioning isn't present or strong enough, it's not enough to just point a fan at it. Make sure that a fan is positioned to take hot air away from your equipment during a conference and that there's a fan to blow air in as well.

Your hotel needs to be away of areas that can fit the fans whether you travel with your own or take the supplied fans from the hotel, so be sure to discuss the issue with hotel staff ahead of time.

Teleconference Internet Service

Mobile data has grown as its own easy to use source after the smartphone revolution changed the way the world communicates, but it isn't perfect. If you can't get a signal in the area, your hotel either needs to have a plan for getting you in coverage area or provide internet service.

Unfortunately, basic hotel wifi isn't enough for all video teleconferences. To maintain at least good audio quality and hope for good video quality, it's best to have a wired connection with network cables such as ethernet or fiber optics.

Available connections for wired internet is nothing new, but you need to guarantee that the connection is good. There's no telling whether the hotel has shared internet that might become weaker as you deal with traffic from other hotel users, or if hotel staff can guarantee bandwidth (internet capacity) for your conference.

Contact a hotel representative to speak with knowledgeable staff to figure out hotel conference room capabilities. 

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