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The grass is greener at Crowne Plaza

16 Aug 2010 by AndrewGough

Crowne Plaza is installing real grass in a number of its London meeting rooms, in the hope of unlocking some long-forgotten childhood creativity.

To address the problem of minds wandering during lengthy meetings, parent group InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) drew on research by Angela Whitlock, author of Walk on the Grass.

“The look and feel of the grass is said to remind guests of their childhood and therefore free them of societal barriers that restrict creativity,” Whitlock said.

“Everybody should kick off their shoes once in a while and walk barefoot on the grass to rekindle the creativity that was allowed to flow freely in childhood before too many rules got in the way.”

The grass-filled meeting rooms are being trialled at Crowne Plaza’s London Docklands, Glasgow and Dublin Northwood properties. They are available from today (August 16) for one week only, with booking teams actively encouraging the use of these rooms.

According to research by IHG, 40 per cent of people lose focus within the first 20 minutes of a meeting. Eleanor Conroy from Crowne Plaza said: “Meetings should be productive and enjoyable but we all know from experience that some meetings can be less than inspiring.

“The fresh grass-turfed meeting rooms are one of the things we’re doing at Crowne Plaza to help our guests get the most out of their business trips.”

A spokesperson for Crowne Plaza said booking figures and guest feedback would be used to judge the results of the trial, which if positive could well lead to grass being rolled-out on a wider scale.

For more information visit crowneplaza.com.

Report by Andrew Gough


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