It’s small wonder that the five-star Hotel Quinta da Marinha Resort, in Cascais, Lisbon, is such a popular venue for meetings, when you consider its sales director is such an expert in them.
The resort’s João Pinto Coelho was recently recognised by Meeting & Incentive Forums for his outstanding contribution since their inception in 2006. At the recent 100th forum organised by Worldwide Events – a division of Big Worldwide – at Disneyland Paris, Pinto Coelho received the award for Outstanding Contribution, presented to the individual who has best embodied the spirit and values of the event during the last 11 years.
Richard Barnes, CEO of Worldwide Events said: “João is a highly influential and much-loved member of the European MICE community and the part that he has played in the M&I Forum story cannot be overstated.
“That is why, on the mark of our 100th edition, we have presented João with the award for Outstanding Contribution. When we started, we set about trying to create a community in the MICE sector which shared a fresh set of values based around relationships, a sense of fun and hard work. We feel that João has been the embodiment of those values and has been instrumental in everything that we have achieved.”
Each Forum takes place across four days, with around 250 suppliers and hoteliers attending, each having 52 face-to-face meetings with meeting planners – and Pinto Coelho has attended 62 of the 100 forums to have taken place.
He was visibly surprised by the news and said: “I never realised I have now carried out more than 3,000 one-to-one meetings during Meetings & Incentive Forums. You would have thought I would have met everybody by now, but there are always new people to see and new products and ideas to be discussed.
“It is really an honour and pleasure to represent not just Hotel Quinta da Marinha and Onyria Golf Resorts, in such successful and well organised events, but also to be a representative of the Lisbon Coast and Cascais. It’s a privilege.”
Hotel Quinta da Marinha offers 11 meeting rooms – with a capacity of 450 people – but also recently introduced the concept of ‘walking meetings’ to take advantage of the resort’s location, in the area of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park and surrounded by beautiful pine trees and a verdant golf course.
The multi-award-winning, family-owned Hotel Quinta da Marinha Resort – which opened in 1999 and was extensively remodelled in 2014 – overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and is complemented by an outstanding Robert Trent Jones Snr-designed golf course, which dates from 1984.
In 2016 it achieved a position of 30th in Golf World‘s inaugural Top 100 Golf Resorts in Continental Europe rankings – a hugely creditable result for an independently owned property. In ranking the Onyria Golf Resorts-owned hotel above several of the country’s best-known resorts, Golf World said it was ‘one of Portugal’s biggest and best hotels … plus a course with scenic cliff-edge holes’.
The resort hotel comprises 198 air-conditioned rooms and suites – each with a spacious balcony and panoramic views of the Robert Trent Jones-designed golf course or the Sintra mountains – plus 40 villas.
Part of the ‘Great Hotels of the World’ portfolio, Hotel Quinta da Marinha Resort is an ideal venue to enjoy a romantic break, hold important meetings, play golf, learn to surf, enjoy a cycling break or simply relax in luxury and comfort in the heart of nature. Its facilities include swimming pools, tennis courts, restaurants, 11 meeting rooms, a health club, complimentary beach shuttle service and one of the most beautiful and prestigious golf courses in the region.
Hotel Quinta da Marinha Resort www.quintadamarinha.com