Is Booking Event Guest Rooms Now a Family Affair?

What do you do when some of your event attendees want to book more than one room in the event hotel block to give their family and even extended family a vacation?

PCMA’s Catalyst community offers members a platform to ask each other questions, share ideas, or, as the website says, “communicate and collaborate.” Here’s a sampling from a recent Catalyst discussion.

“Anyone experiencing a group of attendees who book more than one guest room per registration (such as three additional guest rooms for a total of four rooms per one registration)? If so, any ideas on how you’ve handled this?” Annamarie Luccarelli, CMP, senior event manager at BroadcastMed, asked the PCMA Catalyst Community.

“A little background — we have a meeting at a very family-friendly destination, and we have an attendee looking to book four guest rooms for their one registration. It appears the additional guest rooms would be for their kids, plus two more for their family members and their kids — very much appearing as a vacation. Historically, we’ve just allowed them to book, but as we monitor our pickup and the attendance growth of the meeting, it is becoming more difficult to allow this. Any others in this type of predicament?

“Something we have considered is to apply a room surcharge to each additional guest room, but still debating if that is a good option. Any suggestions welcomed!”

I’ll preface this by saying we are a professional association with 375–500 members at any one meeting and 700–900 total attendees. We contract room blocks based on past attendance history, and I’m sure like many, our goal is to have enough for all members to stay at the host hotel, without falling into attrition. Because of that, it is our policy — stated in our meeting website and [meeting] materials — that we do not allow more than one room per registered member. To control that, we:

• Only allow hotel booking once meeting registration has been processed, and that unique booking link is provided in the registration confirmation. We do not allow call-in hotel reservations.
• I work closely with our hotel rooming coordinator [from] my initial site visit, so they are clear on my expectations for one room per member.
• On the hotel reservation landing page, I request that they set it up to not allow the user to select more than one room when quantity is asked — most can “lock” that quantity feature.
• I receive weekly rooming lists where we cross-check our registration names with the rooming list. If we see more than one room per member (or one under the spouse’s name and one under the member’s name), I advise the member that we may need to move their second reservation out of our block to make sure all members have access to group-rate rooms. Often, I move them out of the block with the hotel immediately and advise the member.
• I suggest that our member check back in with me a few days before our block ends, and if rooms are available, they are welcome to add rooms or move the second room back in our block to receive our favorable rate for their family.

— Suzanne Alsnauer, Senior Meetings and Conference Manager, American College of Trial Lawyers

Outside the Block

“We noticed something peculiar on our hotel pickup reports after this year’s annual meeting — each of our six partner hotels found a significant number of our attendees staying at their properties, but outside of the block,” Ellen Snipes, director, meetings and exhibits at the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS), shared on Catalyst. “I don’t think it’s a rate issue; we had great, low rates at each property combined with a ‘lowest published rate guarantee’ in each contract that we monitored religiously. We will receive credit for those bookings found outside of the block for the purposes of earned comps, performance fees, and attrition. However, we will not get credit when it comes to our rebate, costing the association thousands of dollars in potential revenue. Is anyone else seeing a significant jump in bookings at the correct property, but not in the block? Are you having any success communicating the importance of booking in the block and not just at the partner hotel(s)? Any advice on how to get more of my attendees in the block from the get-go would be appreciated!”

I have seen some of this happening due to finding a better deal for [earning] points as members of certain hotel chains or using a credit card with rewards that offer a higher point value. Another reason could be that many companies have their own travel app that they need to go through to book flight and hotels in order to be paid by the company, and booking through the conference link does not link to their accounting process. I also think that it would be good to educate attendees why they should book inside the block. Many people do not understand why it is important to book through the links.

— Sandy Yi-Davis, CMP, DES, Founder & Head of Event Design, Strategic Meeting International

I see this from our international delegates who [use] a travel agent. My only recommendation: Make sure your event rebate clause and audit clause both include verbiage regarding paying commission and/or rebates on rooms found outside of the block, regardless of rate paid.

— Tiffany Timmons, CMP, Associate Director, Global Event Operations, The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)