The Alfond Inn at Rollins College is not only Florida’s top rated boutique hotel—ranked the #1 property in Florida by the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards for the past two years—but has also become a hub for high-level meetings, conferences, and board retreats in the greater Orlando area. The hotel is taking advantage of its location, facilities, and even its impressive art collection to create a unique corporate meeting experience.
“The meetings team utilizes our formidable collection of 300-plus artworks to inspire and challenge top-tier C-level meeting attendees from the financial, insurance, medical and retail industries,” says Debbie Potter, the hotel’s Director of Sales and Marketing. And in turn, the Alfond Inn offers customized team building events for groups of all sizes, including guided art tours with curators from the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, group cooking competitions, and ice carving contests.
The Alfond Inn is the only hotel in the world that also serves as part of an art museum. At every turn, from the entrance lobby to the restaurant, lounge, and corridors, the hotel was designed as the imaginative extension of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, displaying important masterpieces from The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, ranging from the eye opening to the provocative. The artistic expression displayed throughout the public spaces provides a rich canvas for creative and out-of-the-box meetings.
The Alfond’s impressive 10,000 square feet of indoor function space and a dedicated AV company on site belie the intimate ambiance and distinguish it from the typical large-scale convention hotels in the greater Orlando area. A Les Clefs d’Or Concierge on staff adds to the heightened level of service that all meeting groups can expect, regardless of size. The Library offers a fireplace and comfortable seating for informal meetings or quiet relaxation. Lavish grounds and manicured gardens provide an additional 10,000 square feet of outdoor space for al fresco events, team building, and casual gatherings around the fire pit for s’mores or after dinner cocktails.
Another noteworthy feature that makes the Alfond Inn stand out from traditional meeting spaces is the hotel’s net operating income is directed to The Alfond Scholars Fund, the Rollins College’s premier scholarship endowment program. The pay-it-forward feeling that comes with doing business with a purpose-driven hotel contributing to the education of deserving students makes a corporate retreat at the Alfond Inn a truly unique experience.
Meeting Breaks that Blend with a Historic Town
The Alfond Inn is in the heart of the historic city of Winter Park, just 15 minutes from Orlando. The hotel’s location and walking proximity to elegant Park Avenue sets it apart from many of the gated campus settings found at other resorts and meeting locales. Winter Park’s southern charm is highlighted by century’s old Spanish moss trees, lush urban plantings, and cobblestone streets lined with 19th and early 20th century homes. Meeting attendees quite literally have the world at their door with upscale boutique shopping, an award-winning restaurant scene, and sidewalk cafés, all just a short stroll from the hotel.
Activities include exploring Winter Park on foot, bike rentals, or a canal boat tour to see some of the most stunning examples of Spanish Mediterranean architecture in the state of Florida. In addition to the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, the city is also home to the Polasek Museum, and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which has the world’s most extensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
