ACME, MI – Grand Traverse Resort and Spa with its 86,500 square feet of meeting space, multiple resources, amenities and quick access to Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), has business and convention needs covered. Golf? Who has time for golf? Bring the family? Are you serious? Grand Traverse Resort and Spa’s sales and services staffs and golf experts have some ideas that could help you mix in a little bit of golf and active lifestyle with all of your work, as well as truly reach that balance between your business and quality of life for you and your family. |
Consider this option: A meeting takes a break, participants walk just steps outside of one of the conference rooms and in a few minutes take part in a hole-in-one contest with balls and clubs provided as well as food and beverages. That’s right, hit a few golf shots, win a prize and then get back to work.
Another option: One of the great teachers from the golf staff pops into your meeting and gives everybody a quick putting lesson.
Another option: Golf outings don’t have to be four-plus hours. How about a nine-hole option, with an instructor helping the groups? Or six holes? Do you realize the sun stays up late in Northern Michigan? We have light until almost 10 p.m. during the right weeks of the year. A full day of meetings can be followed by whatever you choose.
Still another option: You have one of your meetings in the spacious Golf Academy with food and beverage service, and perhaps a break for a video analysis of your golf swing.
And one more option to think about: Bring your family because while you work, they can play in all sorts of ways, and then be with you after a full day of meetings involved in golf, swimming, tennis or simply relaxing.
Have a different idea to combine golf and family with laptops? The staff at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa will customize your stay to make it happen.
“Let your imagination go,” Mark Hill, head golf professional and director of instruction, says. “We’ve received great feedback from the groups that have taken a break in a meeting to step outside and do something like a closest-to-the-pin contest. We’re lucky we have an extra par 3 hole just outside the meeting areas. It’s perfect for a break, or a meeting itself.”
Hill said some business groups have incorporated putting green lessons, or have had a putting course set up like putt-putt golf with little piles of sand, and water hazards to avoid.
“Groups don’t have to play nine holes, or 18. We’re not limited to that at all because everybody is only limited by their imagination,” Hill says. “In the middle of winter we can meet with you in the heated Golf Academy and your business partners can play a round of golf on the simulators. It’s really a nice place for a lunch break, or to unwind with a cocktail hour after work is completed.”
All groups coming to Grand Traverse Resort and Spa have multiple options even beyond well-planned outings on award-winning championship golf courses of incomparable beauty.
“The work and life balance idea is something people have talked about for a long time, but I’m not sure it was a reality,” Ryan Buck, director of sales at the resort, says. “At Grand Traverse Resort and Spa we can make it a reality for you. You can have a full day of meetings, and because of Daylight Savings time, with the amenities and activities available here, you can spend rewarding time with your family, too.”
Buck says a customized plan can be put together by the resort staff.
“We work together at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa, sales, golf, all departments and we communicate daily to offer a variety of simple golf events that can tie into any meeting or event,” he says. “It takes some logistics, but it helps us offer some unique golf events when a lot of meeting groups wouldn't even think about them.”
Business, family, an active lifestyle and golf to boot can mix at your desired level at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa, which features three nationally acclaimed golf courses – The Bear, The Wolverine and Spruce Run as well as the state-of-the-art Golf Academy.
The Golf Academy is a 2,000 square foot headquarters of options, including three indoor-outdoor hitting bays equipped with mirrors and motion-capture technology for swing analysis. Clinics, practice sessions, private lessons, club-fitting seminars, equipment demonstrations, hole-in-one and long drive contests and indoor league competition are offered as well via the GC2-powered Golf Simulator by Foresight Sports.
Within the last 12 months, Grand Traverse Resort and Spa completed a $7 million renovation of guest rooms in its 17-story glass-encased tower. The remake of the rooms in the tallest building in Northern Michigan also capped a $34 million investment in improving all aspects of the facility by its owners, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
In addition to award-winning golf facilities, the resort offers 86,500 square feet of meeting space, multiple dining choices, including the upscale flagship Aerie Restaurant & Lounge on the tower’s 16th floor, a 100,000-square foot indoor outdoor health club, the 7,000-square foot Spa Grand Traverse with 23 treatment rooms, five indoor tennis courts, and a 15,000-square foot indoor water playground.
All groups really need to bring with their laptops and families is an imagination.
For more information on group events and meetings, call 231-534-6150 or toll free at 800-236-1577. You can also send an email to meetings@gtresort.com or visit http://www.grandtraverseresort.com.