A site visit spent admiring the view collects the same information the listing already gave away for free.
The visit exists to answer what photos cannot: how the place works with a group actually in it.
Walk the distances - lodging to meeting room, meeting room to meals - at the pace of the slowest guest. Run a shower. Check phone bars in the rooms, not the lobby. Stand in one bedroom while someone talks normally in the next. Find the room the group would end up in at ten at night, because there always is one.
Then write the answers down before leaving the parking lot. Site-visit memories blur by the second venue.
Tour like an operator, not a guest. The venue that survives the boring checks is the one that holds up in week-of reality.
Based on The Retreat Register internal venue dataset as of August 22, 2026. How the register is built: the methodology.