When cooking up an awesome event, room block management is a key ingredient. It’s a way to offer accommodations to your event’s attendees and delegates.
Room block management is a critical but often overlooked part of the event planning process. As we continue to share insights for Event Technology Week, let’s demystify the process of room block management for event planners.
First off, what is room block management?
Room block management refers to the process of securing and managing hotel room blocks for your event’s attendees. It can be an exhaustive process, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are 10 tips to help you manage your room blocks for your next event.
Make registration and reservations a match made in heaven.
When registration and hotel reservations are integrated, it simplifies the process for attendees. Presenting them with hotel options during the registration process means one less step for them to worry about. Integrating registration with hotel reservations also allows you to track your attendee data from one space.
Negotiate your room block rates.
When planning early enough, this will give you ample time to start negotiating contracts and room rates with hotels.
Keep an eye, or two, on your attrition.
Hotels often charge attrition fees for any rooms within your room block that aren’t being filled up. But these fees can often be mitigated by communicating and negotiating with the hotel.
Communication is king.
Inform attendees where they can book within the room block. Make it easy for them to understand where it is that they need to go and make it visible wherever possible.
Entice your attendees and exhibitors.
Everyone loves to feel special, and attendees and exhibitors are no exception. Any perks you can offer would be a great way to provide incentive to book within your room block. This includes:
- Special room rates
- Social functions
- Networking opportunities
- Shuttle service
Be aware of shoulder nights.
Attendees may want to come in early or stay later after the event. That’s why it’s important to ensure you have adequate shoulder nights for those wanting to book a longer stay outside of the event peak nights.
Know the local area.
It’s also important to know the city. Identify any points of interest, such as landmarks, restaurants or tourist attractions, and add them to your room block set-up. This enhances the attendee experience by giving delegates a taste of the region.
Keep customer support in mind.
Ensure you have a well-rounded team to support registrants during the booking process. This will take some of the pressure off you. And of course, customer support makes the process seamless for attendees.
Save yourself time.
Working with technology platforms such as Resiada rescues event planners from many of the manual tasks that suck up too much of their time. Technology can automatically track and report on the data behind your registration and room blocks.
No more sweating room blocks. Hopefully this helps you navigate the world of room block management.
Want to know more about room block management and event technology? Stay up-to-date with tools, trends and insights during Event Technology Week!
