Booking a block of hotel rooms for a group is much different than booking one or two rooms for a business trip or family vacation. There’s a wide range of considerations that need to be carefully weighed that will guide your selection of a hotel for your group. To get the best deals, you will need to understand how hotels handle requests for group rooms and what factors will help you get the best deal.
First, hotels define a group booking as anything over 10 rooms. Smaller groups are sold through the usual reservations system or, perhaps, your favorite online travel agency. Group room blocks are sold through the hotel’s Sales department and prices are quoted based upon the group’s specific needs and hotel availability. While group rates are generally some of the lowest rates available, they are not guaranteed to be the lowest.
If your group needs meeting space as well as sleeping rooms, be sure to clearly outline what your needs are in terms of dates, times, room set-ups and the number of attendees in each meeting room. For example, don’t forget to request a separate room for meals if you prefer to eat away from your meeting space. Breaks are often set up in a foyer near our meeting room, but a full meal service may require an extra room. Conversely, don’t over-exaggerate your meeting room needs – that can backfire on you. Hotels make most of their profit on sleeping rooms, so they may be reluctant to offer meeting space to groups that don’t have adequate sleeping room needs. This can be really important if you’re booking a local group where most people won’t be staying overnight. You might have to do an extensive search to find a venue that meets your needs.
There are online tools that can help you. Vindow’s Platform is a travel technology website that caters to groups by offering online RFP creation and hotel sourcing. They not only have an entire library of destination profiles for different cities around the world to help you pick the perfect destination but you can also create an RFP to send to hotels requesting bids for your group.
Whether you’re looking for an offsite company meeting or a family reunion, understanding the dynamics behind group hotel bookings can save you time and money in the long run.
