Accessible and responsible meeting venues made available

In 2018, Hansel arranged a tendering process on a framework agreement for its customers that offers meeting and event venues for meetings and other events in Finland.

The goal with the tendering process was to ensure that a sufficient number of meeting venues all around Finland would be available and that companies of all sizes and private entrepreneurs could participate in the tendering. A total of 85% of the selected suppliers, or 65 companies, are SMEs. The almost 200 meeting venues included in the centralised procurement contract are located all around Finland, and the meeting venue selection complies with the customers’ needs in the whole of Finland.

Venues can be found through a new meeting reservation service

Whenever possible, accessibility to public premises and the provided meeting and accommodation facilities is considered in the case of all the meeting venues included in the scope of the contract. Furthermore, completely accessible events in compliance with the Helppo liikkua (Easy to move) criteria by the Finnish Association of People with Physical Disabilities can be arranged at more than a hundred of the venues. The criteria take into account issues pertaining to transport connections, accessible access routes, furniture and lighting of the venue, among other issues.

Hansel’s customers can book meeting venues through a meeting reservation service that was recently opened on Hansel’s website, for example. They can also search for meeting venues where accessibility has been taken into account.

“From time to time, our customers arrange events with participants who have disabilities which hamper their movement or functional capacity. In such cases, accessibility must be considered already when planning the event. The new joint procurement contract better responds to our customers’ needs in this respect,” says Minna Isoherranen, a category manager who was involved in the preparation of the tendering process.

The minimum requirements on meeting venues also take into account environmental and social responsibility. The meeting venues measure and monitor the consumption of heat, electricity and water, as well as strive to reduce the wastage of food, for example. In terms of social responsibility, the meeting venues have committed to paying attention to equal treatment of employees, and harassment or any other form of inappropriate behaviour is not allowed in the work community.