2 min readThe KinKonnects team
Hotel or workspace for your Kinshasa meeting?
Both work, for different meetings. The choice turns on four criteria, and the advertised price is not one of them.
In Kinshasa, searching for a meeting room sends you to hotels first. That makes sense: they have the rooms, the catering and the habit of hosting. But a hotel room is designed for an event, not for a two hour working meeting. Here is how to decide.
What hotels do better
- Catering, built in and at scale.
- Large formats, beyond thirty people.
- Formality: reception, cloakroom, signage, rooms for people travelling in.
- Central location, usually Gombe.
What a workspace does better
- Hire by the hour, with no minimum spend.
- A business connection sized for video calls rather than for guest room wifi.
- Access to a printer, a whiteboard and desks around the room.
- Free parking, which becomes a real issue in Gombe.
- The option to run an hour over without renegotiating a package.
The four criteria that decide it
- 1.Duration. Under three hours, a hotel almost always bills a half day.
- 2.Minimum spend. Many hotel rooms look free and are charged through compulsory catering.
- 3.Connectivity. If anyone joins remotely, ask about guaranteed bandwidth before anything else.
- 4.Headcount. Under ten a hotel is oversized; over thirty a workspace is not enough.
The most common case
Six to ten people, two hours, a laptop on a screen, one or two people dialling in. It is the commonest meeting there is and the one hotels suit least: you pay for a forty seat room, a catering package you do not need, and wifi shared with the guests upstairs.
When you want both
For a two day event with people flying in, the combination is often right: the hotel for accommodation and dinner, the workspace for the sessions. It usually costs less than doing everything at the hotel and the sessions go better.
Our rooms
KinKonnects hires meeting rooms by the hour and a conference room for up to twenty in Ngaliema, with no minimum spend, backed up power, fibre and parking. Open 7am to 10pm, Monday to Saturday. Call +243 961 000 077.
FAQ
Is a hotel room more expensive?
Not always on the headline price, often on the total, because of minimum spend and half day billing.
Can you run a video call from a hotel room?
Technically yes. The risk is wifi shared with the guest rooms. Ask whether a dedicated connection is possible and what it costs.
What about thirty people or more?
Past thirty, hotels regain the advantage on capacity and catering. Below that, a workspace is usually better sized.
