Organising a conference, seminar, product launch or any other major corporate event or overnight booking can be a daunting experience for even the most experienced PA or secretary. Finding the right venue in the right location, and then chasing a provisional booking, invariably takes time and persistence. For already stretched PAs, the process of following a number of enquiries that can easily consume days if not weeks, can be frustrating.

Traditionalists may, of course, prefer to go the do-it-yourself route using directories and hotel brochures, professional magazine and website adverts, and information gathered at business exhibitions. There’s nothing wrong with that! Others might like to plump for engaging a professional venue-finding organisation to take the brunt of the work on for them. Modernists will no doubt prefer online venue sourcing from their desktop PC, which most offline services now offer. Few providers now have only offline services.

So who are the experts and what can they do for you?

Why not try a Convention and Visitor Bureau? They have become very popular and can be found via the British Association of Conference Destinations (www.bacd.org.uk), a free, one-stop venue location service providing information on 2,600 venues throughout Britain.

There are around 80 bureaux in Britain, ranging from those in small towns with a staff or one or two, to high professional bureaux in cities such as Glasgow, Leeds and London. They aim to offer an impartial enquiry point and a comprehensive range of services for their particular town, city or region, combined with all that valuable local knowledge. The bureaux can also help with delegate packs, transport arrangements, social programmes, and lots more - often at no charge.

Equally excellent offline is the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers (www.abpco.co.uk), whose services cover programme planning and selection of speakers as well as booking accommodation and events. Another good option is Conference Centres of Excellence (www.cceonline.co.uk), which incorporates venues from country retreats to purpose-built venues right across the UK. Or Initial Style (www.initialstyle.co.uk), who boast that their conference centres have links with all sorts of specialist suppliers so anything out of the ordinary can be organised quickly.

Online venue-booking sites – some tailored to specific markets – vary in speed and ease of navigation but, by and large, the services offered differ little. Their strength lies in their ability to offer an extremely wide choice of venue. They then allow users to whittle down that selection by the criteria that matters to them, such as availability, region, car parking capacity, price band, private dining, etc.

Big in the global market is Expotel (www.expotel.co.uk) with access to 43,000 hotels and conference venues worldwide. Its free hotel search and booking service can also help with conference and event management and exhibitions. The relatively new business arm, Conference Solutions by Expotel, involves itself in anything from purely finding a venue to overseeing an event in its entirety. (Email veena@consolbyexpotel.co.uk).

IBR (http://www.ibr.co.uk Tel: 01483 520 770), one of the UK’s largest agencies, places £60 million-worth of business into hotels every year and boasts that it can reduce the search process down to a matter of seconds, thanks to its all-singing, all-dancing software.

Venues Etc (www.venues-etc.com) also has a fully-automated venue database. Called VenueBase Software it holds profiles on more than 11,000 venues globally and, says sales director Judith Tillam, “We can search 11,000 venues by 20 individual or collective criteria in two and a half seconds and guarantee a response in eight working hours.” In addition, Venues Etc can provide a variety of management information reports for clients which allows them to monitor their business trends and spend.

Conference Blue & Green claims to be the most comprehensive directory for conference, meeting and corporate hospitality venues in Britain with 7,000 listed on its www.venuefinder.com site, which gives virtual reality tours, location maps and good prices for last minute events.

Other sites worth clicking on to include www.talkingpoint.co.uk, the specialist conference and incentive travel division of The Travel Company, Britain’s largest independent business travel agency, the Corporate Hospitality and Event Association (www.eventassociation.co.uk) whose members are bonded, and Corporate Innovations (www.corporateinnovations.co.uk), who provide a complete sporting event service including supplying clients with a Sporting Hospitality Calendar.

Regional and national tourists boards can also be a great help in seeking out venues, as can specialist venue and event magazines such as "Corporate Entertainer" and "Event & Venue Specialist". Condé Nast Johansens worldwide country houses, hotels, and business venues guides (www.johansens.com) are extremely useful, and the AA has launched a new guide this year, called "The Business Hotel Guide", which features 2,000 hotels for business as well as event and conference information, and golf courses.

Academic venues are increasingly offering interesting and good value options at campuses around the country. Events held during student vacations can mean getting access to superb lecture halls and state of the art technology. For more information, contact Venuemasters, a consortium of around 100 academic sites from Edinburgh to Exeter (www.venuemasters.co.uk).

University and college venues are also profiled at the Venuemasters Exhibition, held in May each year (details on the Venuemasters website), and of course national exhibitions are another great source of information. Shows also offer a chance to speak to staff and get a feel for the ambience of the premises.

Recent research from the Meetings Industry Association showed that over 70% of conference organisers attend International Confex (www.international-confex.com) each year, and around 30% make a trip to Meetings & Incentive Travel Show (www.meetpie.com/mitshow/). The Times Crème Executive PA Show (www.thetimescreme.co.uk) is also a great place to check out venues, as are both RSVP events (www.rsvpchristmas.co.uk) in the year. Then, there's also the National Venue Show (www.nationalvenueshow.co.uk) and the Event Show, previously Event Expo, (www.eventshow.co.uk). The BACD's event takes place in London in November, and is called Confer (www.bacd.org.uk).

So, take your pick! There are experts galore waiting by their phones and inboxes, just to help you find the perfect venue for your next event.

Norman Flack regularly contributes articles on business travel and hotels as well as on general business subjects to a range of international publications, including Condé Nast Johansens worldwide hotel guides. He is former Group Editor of Daily Mail publications, London, Editor of The Field's Country Sports, Editor of Grand prix Racing, an Editor with IPC magazines and has held editorial positions on The Times, Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express

Don't miss the first venue review by the new DeskDemon PA review team - it's on the site now! Find out what Carole Blackwood thought of her trip to the races at Kempton Park. It seems she found the whole event an outright winner!