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Boosting the Room Block,
by Timothy Schneider, Publisher, Association News
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Los
Angeles, CA – June 2014 / Newsmaker Alert / Association meeting planners
have long faced challenges when it comes to compelling meeting-goers to
stay in the association’s hotel room block. Those problems worsened with
the advent of the Internet and the ability for attendees to easily check
for lower-priced rooms and then quickly communicate their findings via
email or social media with other association members.
As
if the situation was not challenging enough, home-share websites such as
Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway are making it easier than ever for meeting and
convention-goers to find non-hotel rental accommodations. A new metasearch
site, alltherooms.com, even aggregates the data from the home-sharing sites
and combines it with data from hotel-focused sites to present users with
a full range of accommodation options that includes everything from $11-pernight
hostels to five-star resorts and luxury homes.
Given
the ease with which meeting-goers can identify less costly and sometimes
superior accommodations, Martin Bay, director of meetings and expositions
at Kellen Company, encourages actively educating attendees and providing
them with good reasons to stay in the group’s room block. Bay cites the
following list of reasons why your members should stay in your association’s
room block at the hotel you’ve selected:
1.
The official hotel has been reviewed and approved by your association.
2.
Better networking opportunities exist when attendees stay at the official
hotel.
3.
Reservations within the block can be protected contractually so the attendee
will be less likely to be relocated if the hotel is oversold.
4.
The association can provide on-site assistance for members staying at the
official hotel.
5.
The group contract can provide friendlier booking terms (including no change
fees and no full prepayment) than many online sites offer.
6.
Attendees can be guaranteed the group rate for the duration of their stay.
7.
The association can arrange for complimentary shuttle bus service between
the official hotel and meeting venues, providing attendees convenient transportation
and another opportunity to interact with fellow attendees.
8.
It may help to explain that staying at the official hotel helps minimize
expenses for the association, thereby keeping both housing and registration
fees lower.
9.
The association may also consider offering an additional registration discount
when the member books inside the group’s block or pricing registration
and accommodation as a package.
10.
Staying at the official hotel is another way of supporting the association.
In other words, it’s the right thing to do.
Thanks
to our enthusiastic attendees and exhibitors, last month’s relaunch of
the Meetings Quest trade-show series was a tremendous success. For a photo
report from Meetings Quest in Mesa, please turn
to page 26 of the Association News digital edition.
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Timothy
Schneider is the publisher of Association
News and SportsTravel
magazines, which serve group travel planners responsible for generating
106 million hotel room nights annually. Schneider
Publishing also organizes Meetings
Quest, America's longest-running series of trade shows for meeting
planners, and the TEAMS Conference
& Expo, the world’s largest gathering of sports-event organizers.
TEAMS '14 is being held in Las Vegas, November 10-13, 2014. For further
information on advertising or sponsorship opportunities, please call toll-free
877-577-3700 or 310-577-3700 if calling from outside the United States.
The
current issue of Association
News can be viewed in digital format online by clicking
here.
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Media
Contact:
Timothy
Schneider
310-577-3700
Schneider
Publishing Company, Inc. |