Musings of a Meeting Planner: Shanghai, One Of My Top Destinations

She was a sleeping giant….China.  With traditions and a way of doing things that spans millennia.  Today, no doubt remains that she has awakened.  At the vanguard of her triumphal advance: the Pearl of the Orient, Paris of the East.

Shanghai.

As the Huangpu River cuts across Shanghai, cleanly marking the old half from the new, I walk along the Bund and find myself counting the skyscrapers that dot Pudong on the far bank.  Surely I’ve heard somewhere that Shanghai’s towers number in the thousands.

Stopping to take one more snapshot of that unmistakable skyline, I realize another dozen people are doing the exact same thing. Not one of us immune to a view that is testament to the city’s willingness to push ever onward and upward.  As if the city’s spirit is daring the heavens to contain it.

But enough of my minnow musings.  It’s time for me to put on my meeting planner’s cap.

You see, I’ve made it my mission in life to find and set up choice locations for our clients’ meeting and event needs. Professionally, it’s what I live for.

Food within the city is an unmatched range of regional Chinese fare to the best the planet has to offer. Thinking of offsite dining functions?  Your choices are endless.  Adventurous street cuisine to Michelin-star gastronomy – it’s all here depending on your mood.

As far as destinations for productive and creative meetings go, Shanghai is very definitely on my short-list. Squaring that away, allow me to share with you a little slice of the city that is the face of the twenty first century.

Goodness, where to begin? Jumping off from Pudong International Airport and driving through the busy financial district, I can see that Shanghai has a multitude of luxury and business hotels that provide ample meeting space.  Take your pick.  If that’s not enough, the Shanghai New International Expo Center boasts of more than  2.1 million square foot of meeting space, and that’s just one of the city’s seven convention centers.  The theme is undeniable;

Shanghai tries to do it bigger and better than the rest of the world.

How to end? From the shopping in Nanjing for starters, to the evening cruises up and down the Huangpu as Shanghai’s billion-bulb brilliance bathes you in its dazzling glow. Over the hundreds of choices for nightspots that bloom every moonrise. Then you have the countryside tours and mighty Yangtze River treks.

Two words come to mind thinking of the experiences Shanghai affords: explosively rich.

Dusk has fallen and I find myself in front of the structurally impressive Grand Hyatt Shanghai. The hotel starts at the 53rd floor of the 88 story Jin Mao Tower.  Bending back as I trace my hotel piercing skyward, trying to rub the goose-bumps on my arms away.

What terrific confidence to build such things!  What a time to share with the city that refuses to be 2ndplace. Then it hits me. I may have found the secret behind all the wild success. It isn’t just a city.

It’s a Far Eastern state of mind.