Booking a meeting room in Switzerland usually means discovering the real cost after the event, once the room hire, the technician, the coffee breaks and the lunch have each been invoiced separately. Neuchâtel works differently at the Hôtel Beaulac, where seven modular rooms on the lakeshore are sold as a per-person package with the extras named in advance. This article sets out the capacities, what each package covers and what to confirm before you sign. For a specific enquiry, write directly to sales@beaulac.ch.
Seven rooms, from a board meeting to a three-hundred-seat conference
The hotel has seven meeting rooms, all air-conditioned and modular, with a stated maximum capacity of three hundred people. That range covers a six-person management meeting, a regional company’s annual general meeting and a full department’s training day.
The modularity is the useful part, and it is also where misunderstandings start. A room seating thirty theatre-style takes only twelve to fifteen around a U-shape, and eight to ten boardroom-style. When you give your headcount, always state the layout you want rather than the number alone. That is the difference between a comfortable room and one where the back row cannot see the screen.
One thing worth knowing before you book: the room you are allocated depends on the headcount you declare, and asking for a larger room than you need may attract a supplement. If your numbers are still moving, say so at the enquiry stage instead of overstating them as a precaution.
What the package covers, and what it does not
The hotel sells two seminar packages, which removes the line-by-line budgeting.
- The full-day package is listed at CHF 98 per person. It covers the equipped room with technical support, two coffee breaks morning and afternoon, lunch, mineral water, a Nespresso machine and Wi-Fi.
- The half-day package is listed at CHF 70 per person, with the same room and the same services, one coffee break either morning or afternoon, and lunch.
The technical support deserves a moment. In many venues, “equipped room” means a projector has been left in the corner and the rest is your problem. Here it is part of the package, which changes the character of your morning when the presentation refuses to appear at five to nine.
On catering, the package covers lunch served in the room: a beef or chicken burger with salad and a dessert, or a sushi selection. Two upgrades are available, both from twenty people. The Lake Side restaurant offers a three-course set menu or a chef’s buffet, at a supplement of CHF 15 per person. The Skybar Waves on the roof serves a standing dinner of twelve to fifteen canapés, at a supplement of CHF 45 per person. That last option turns a working day into an actual evening, and it is often what your delegates remember about the session.
One constraint to plan around: a single menu is required for everyone. Allergies are accommodated when notified in advance and vegetarian alternatives are available, but individual à la carte choice is not offered. Collect dietary requirements with the registrations, not the day before.
Getting there from outside Switzerland
If your delegates are flying in, Neuchâtel is not the obvious name on the map, and that is worth addressing early. Neuchâtel station is served every thirty minutes by InterCity trains on the Lausanne-Biel axis, hourly by services to and from Basel, and hourly by the InterRegio linking La Chaux-de-Fonds to Bern. Fribourg is connected every thirty minutes and Yverdon-les-Bains hourly. Bern is less than forty-three kilometres away.
For an international group, the practical route is usually Zurich or Geneva airport, then a train with one connection. Build in the connection rather than promising a door-to-door time you cannot control, and tell delegates to buy through to Neuchâtel rather than to the airport city: Swiss rail ticketing handles the whole journey as one.
From the station, the Fun’ambule funicular runs down to the lower town and the university quarter near the lakeshore. The hotel also has a car park, which settles the question for anyone driving in from the Jura or the Val-de-Travers, where the train requires a change.
When delegates stay the night
For a two-day programme, accommodation is in the same building. The hotel has ninety-six rooms across seven categories, from Comfort to Large Suite, facing either the lake or the old town. All have Swiss ELITE bedding with Ecolabel certification, a rain shower, a minibar and a Nespresso machine.
A gym is open seven days a week from six in the morning to ten at night, with cardio and strength equipment. That stays a detail right up to the moment a delegate asks where to run before the morning session. There is, however, no spa and no pool. If that matters to your group, better to know now than to discover it on arrival.
For longer programmes, a suite can be used for a small private meeting, which avoids blocking a whole room for a conversation between four people.
How to book
Room and banquet enquiries go to Mrs Véronique Gindrat, banquets and seminars manager, at sales@beaulac.ch or +41 32 723 11 11. Prepare your enquiry with the headcount, the layout you want, the dates, start and finish times, the catering requirement and any bedrooms needed: you will get a firm proposal in one exchange rather than three.
If you are still choosing the destination rather than the room, our article on organising a corporate seminar in Neuchâtel covers the stage before this one, with the regional arguments and what can be built around the working day. If your event is a celebration rather than a meeting, the page on banquets and private receptions is the better fit. Either way, email sales@beaulac.ch with your dates: room availability in the busy weeks is decided several months ahead.
