Why is the geographic midpoint often a poor choice?
Equal distances do not mean equally good connections. A city further away may be reachable directly, while a closer place needs several changes. The way to the station, waiting times and the transfer to the venue also change the real travel time.
So check the whole journey. Including transfers and buffers, a short flight can take longer than a direct train. It must stay clear which legs a plan takes into account.
Which places should you compare?
Three to five realistic candidates are usually enough. More places do not make the comparison better, only harder to read. Four kinds of candidates have proven useful:
- Your offices: people who work at the meeting point do not travel and need no room. The office with the most participants is therefore an obvious benchmark, but not automatically the best choice.
- Transport hubs: cities with many direct train and flight connections to your offices.
- The client site: often fixed for project meetings; then the only question is how each person gets there. More on this in the project kick-off guide.
- A place with a purpose: for example for an offsite outside the city. Include the way from the station to the venue.
What information do you need for a fair comparison?
- Same dates: fix the meeting, the preferred arrival and the possible departure.
- Same starting points: use the same starting point for each person across all cities.
- Same scope: compare outbound and return journeys, the overnight stays needed and the transfers taken into account.
- Personal limits: take maximum travel time, changes and earliest departure into account.
Missing prices or unavailable connections are gaps in the data. Do not treat them as a free journey or as proof that a place is especially cheap.
When is a meeting point fair?
A meeting point with the shortest total travel time can still put a heavy load on individual people. So look at three figures at once:
- Average: the mean outbound and return journey per team member. It shows the effort for the group.
- Longest journey: the person who travels furthest. If that journey is well above average, they may need to arrive the evening before.
- Spread over time: do the same people always travel far? For recurring meetings, a rotating meeting point can be fairer than the one that scores best on paper.
Decide which limit is not negotiable, for example a maximum travel time per direction. That limit then applies equally to every place.
What does a well-founded decision look like?
This entirely made-up example covers six people and two nights. All values are synthetic; they describe neither real cities nor current offers or client results.
| Criterion | Place A | Place B |
|---|---|---|
| Total travel and hotel cost | €2,400 | €2,760 |
| Average outbound and return journey per team member | 6 hours | 4 hours |
| Total travel emissions of the team | 540 kg CO₂ | 360 kg CO₂ |
Place B costs €360 more. In return, each person travels two hours less on average; that is twelve hours in total. In the sample data it also produces 180 kilograms less CO₂. Whether this trade-off makes sense depends on your budget and your priorities.
The average is not enough: also check whether any single person ends up with an unreasonable connection. A good group total does not override personal limits. Record the decision with its figures and weighting; then you can repeat it with the same assumptions at the next meeting and explain it to the team.
How do you weigh cost, travel time and CO₂ against each other?
The trade-off is easiest with an exchange rate you agree in advance: what is one hour of one person’s travel time worth to you? If you set it at €100, the twelve hours saved in the example are worth €1,200, far more than the €360 that Place B costs extra.
- Travel time: hours on the road are missing for project work and rest. For consultancies with full project schedules, they often count for more than a few euros on the ticket.
- CO₂: decide whether emissions count equally or as a limit, for example train instead of plane up to a certain journey time.
- Cost: always use the total of travel and hotel, never the cheapest single ticket; the travel costs guide shows how.
Write the rate down and use it for every meeting. Then you compare places by rules the team knows, not by gut feeling.
How does Coloqa support the choice?
Coloqa compares selected places by cost, travel time and CO₂. You weight the criteria and check the recommendation against the best value for each single criterion. The result refers to the places compared and the options available, not to every offer on the market.
How the recommendation is made
See the planning flow in the product or get answers to common questions about Coloqa.