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FAQ'sThe FAQs section is designed to answer those questions posed most frequently by participating hotels and restaurants as well as registered users. Scroll down to see if your question is answered here. User questions are listed first, then hotels and restaurant membership questions are further down. If your question is not answered here, we welcome them under the contact section. USERS: Travel Planners NEVER ANY MEMBERSHIP FEES FOR USERS, COMPLETELY FREE! Q: AS A COACH AT A COLLEGE, HOW DOES GROUPEXCLUSIVES HELP?A. GroupExclusives.com is here to help! There are three features that help save time, money and frustration when planning away games. Search hotels nearby your destination campus, search restaurants near your destination campus or locally for celebratory dinners and Memorys, our one click social networking tool that allows teams or athletes independently to create an entire site of video and picture sharing with blogs just for them. Simply create a profile to be used for this and all future trips, letting us know a little about your team and start searching by city or the college or university that you are planning to visit. You can plan your whole season of away games in one visit! SEARCH HOTELS: GroupExclusives.com goes out and sends your request, based on your teams travel profile, to as many hotels as you select. No more taking a day off to stay at home researching and calling all the hotels trying to find the best deal. The results will come back to you in an easy to read grid for you to evaluate the deal that best fits your needs. By simply selecting the hotel you have decided on from your Personal Travel Dashboard, you will notify the hotel of interest and will be able to negotiate the agreements directly with the hotel. The RFPS are sent to the hotels anonymously so you wont receive a hundred phone calls from all the hotels trying to get you to stay with them. Don’t forget to make a quick decision, hotel inventories change constantly and that means the rates they offer you at that moment may not be available for long, so don’t delay. This is especially true if you are searching for a hotel during a big competition that many teams will be traveling to. SEARCH RESTAURANTS: Another great feature of GroupExclusives.com is the ability to get the most competitive bids from restaurants as well! You can view menus of nearby recommended restaurants of the hotel you choose to plan ahead for how you are going to feed everyone. Even better, send your request to the recommended restaurants of that chosen hotel or dozens of restaurants in the area to seek out the best deal. The restaurants will receive the travel information from your team profile telling them when you will be in town. Restaurants that want your team to either order from them (Pizza, Take out and such) or to come in, will offer their best bid. At times this could be custom menus to fit your budget, complimentary items such as appetizers, salads, beverages or deserts or other creative competitive options. You can even upload custom menu requirements allowing restaurants to competitively bid on your teams specific nutritional needs. MEMORYS: This fun and exciting feature from GroupExclusives allows registered planners to create, in one click, an entire social networking site dedicated just to that team, athlete or game! A good example of this is that the person responsible for travel can simply log in and “Create a New Memory” and invite the entire team to participate. The size of the Memory is not limited so you can invite a dozen participants or thousand for a large event or competition. Participants can blog and share videos and pictures of the game, event or experience. Athletes can collect years of Memorys across all sports and levels. Invited athletes can also invite friends, family and fans, however no one can participate without an invitation. It is that simple! If your planner has selected a hotel or restaurant from the site, the Memory will also attach to the hotel or restaurant. These associated Memorys will, in time, aide future travel planners with insight into how the teams enjoyed that hotel or restaurant in the past. Essentially creating a “best of list” for hotels and restaurants. If you create a Memory from a recent travel search, this is done automatically, however, if you “Create A New Memory, it is independent of the travel plans. Q: I HANDLE TRAVEL FOR MY CHILDS TEAM, WHERE DO I START?A. Great News, GroupExclusives.com was developed with you in mind. We understand that you have precious little time to take on another task, so allow GroupExclusives.com to do the work for you. Simply select Travel Planner Signup from the home page, create a simple profile and start planning your trips. Q. I found the hotel that I would like to use, but they are asking me to sign a contract.A: Not to worry, scroll down to Hotel Contracts, Top ten Do's and Don'ts to read all about how to negoatitate a successful hotel contract. See SEARCH HOTELS, SEARCH RESTAURANTS & MEMORYS above for a full description of the services offered.
Q. I have been invited to participate in a Memory, now what?A. A friend, team mate, coach, assitance coach or travel planner has created a Memory specific to an upcoming trip, game or event and they are inviting you. The invitiation is your way of gaining access to this Memory as they are by invite only. By clicking on the link provided you are able to create a password and gain access to this Memory to start to blog and share pics and vids regarding this game or event. Q. I Forgot how to sign in to My MemorysA. There are several different ways various users enter the site to log in. As a Memory Participant, simply select Find A Memory from the Home page, you will notice the log in box in the upper left navigation pane changes from Travel Planner Sign in to User Sign in. This is where Memory Users log in to gain access to all the Memorys that they have been invited to. Q. I receive an error message when I try to upload my video, what do I do?A. Verify your files types, currently only 3GP, FLV and MP4 file types are accepted. Max file size is 999 MB, just short of 1Gig. We are working hard to increase video flexibility, however this process will take a few more months of development. For now, these are the file types and size restrictions. If you are still contiuing to have problems, please write to us via the Contact Us Form and we will review it within 24 hours. Q. I want to create my own new Memory, how do I do it?A. In order to create your own Memorys you need to be registered as a Travel Planner. From the home page, you can select Travel Planner Sign up. If you are not a travel planner, that is OK, simply select None for Travel Planner Type. Once you have registered as a travel planner, you will be brought to your personal travel dashboard, from here you can create and manage Memorys of your own.
Membership Fees Apply Q: How is GroupExclusives is so vastly different than other online group web sites?A: The founder, Jimmy Legg, has over 25 years in the industry and has worked diligently to make GroupExclusives stand well above all others currently on the internet. By adding features to notify hotels when hotels win business (and do not) this will ensure hotels do not hold space excessively and encourages users to make quick group decisions with tools built into their dashboard. It is our sole mission to not only create a web site or tool that has a vast variety of hotels and restaurants, but to ensure that we reach the masses in America to bring them to the site to use it. Although it is designed for ease of use by everyday Americans, professional travel planners will have access to the site as well. The site currently offers features not found anywhere else on the internet. Not only can travel planners find a hotel, they can, in the same step, send RFPs to surrounding restaurants, offering the same RFP functionality as hotels. The combination of RFP services to hotels and restaurants is a first in the world! One of the greatest unique features of GroupExclusives.com is the Memorys section. Another first for the internet, group planners can, in one easy step, create a Memory of the event or trip to be listed on GroupExclusives.com for years to come. Not only can the planner send invitations to attendees, the attendees can blog and post both videos and pictures to the custom Memory page. These Memorys becomes part of the hotel and restaurant profiles, allowing planners to view experiences at the hotels and restaurants by previous groups. The team is diligently working on inviting over 40,000 hotels, B&B and resorts nationwide as well as over 140,000 restaurants. We understand that signing up hotels and restaurants is just the beginning. The concentrated effort to introduce the site and tools to 44,000 coaches in collegiate sports, 150,000 plus individuals that book for youth, amateur and association sports, 33,000 registered travel agents, as well as the general public is a top priority. As dedicated hotel and restaurant professionals we all clearly understand the value of group business, and we will work hard to ensure everyone finds the benefits of GroupExclusives.com. We will ensure the business is legitimate, qualified and timely. With all that GroupExclusives.com has to offer, we anticipate those with group needs to come to rely on the site as not only a resource, but a tool to complete the activities of planning a trip or event. We are always open to new ideas or additions to the site and will continue to research what meeting and travel planners want and will include the resources constantly. It is our intent to become the foremost resource to sports group travel planners across the United States. Q: HOW DO I REGISTER?A. Hotels are invited to join to start receiving leads from travelers that are seeking group accommodations for overnight travel. Simply select the Hotel Enrollment from the home page to create a hotel profile. It just takes a few moments, and once the profile page is reviewed your hotel will be visible to travel planners to receive leads. After you select submit on the profile, you will receive a welcome email with your password and username along with the invoice and W9. Q: WHAT DOES IT COST?A. There are two affordable membership levels, Basic and Enhanced. Basic offers RFP functionality and up to 6 photos, whereas Enhanced offers a larger profile listing, up to 12 photos and the ability for members to be linked to your listing. Basic Membership is $199 per year and Enhanced Memberships are $299 per year. Either option is conveniently invoiced to your hotel after publishing your profile. Q: HOW MANY LEADS SHOULD I EXPECT?A. Lead volume is expected to be vigorous as we will be notifying all 2,000 colleges and universities and all their coaches in the Athletic Departments. With an average of 10 men and 10 womens sports per school, that is 40,000 coaches and travel planners for college and universities alone. We also are reaching out to over 55,000 unique travel planners for Youth, Association and Amateur sports. Many of these 99,000 users have been surveyed, and the vast majority have called for a site such as this to be developed. If you currently receive a great deal of group business traveling to your nearby campus, you should expect to be able to continue to receive those leads. Q: I ALREADY RECEIVE MOST OF THE SPORTS GROUPS IN MY AREA, WHY SHOULD I REGISTER?A. GroupExclusives.com is not only designed for sports teams seeking group accommodations at a nearby campus, it is designed to offer the most competitive overall bids to the travel planners. Up to ten of your neighboring hotels will be invited to start receiving leads as well. If you are currently receiving most of the group leads, it is suggested that you become a member to continue to receive them through GroupExclusives.com, or you may not have the opportunity that your neighbors will. Q: WHO WILL USE GROUPEXCLUSIVES TO SEND ME LEADS?A. GroupExclusives.com and its staff of seasoned hotel, restaurant and sports travel professionals are busy communicating with all 2,000 College and University Athletic Directors and all their 40,000 coaches and assistance coaches for each sports team. Further marketing efforts are under way to reach beyond the athletic department for other school competition related travel. Near future plans also call for mass marketing to parents of youth travel as well as amateur and association travel. It is the mission of GroupExclusives.com to become the foremost sports group travel tool in the United States and deliver legitimate quality business to hotels and restaurants across the country. Q: MY HOTEL CHAIN ALREADY HAS A GROUP RFP WEB SITE, SO WHY GROUPEXCLUSIVES.COM?A. Years of research have shown that almost 85% of group travel planners do not have brand loyalty, however are simply looking to arrange the group travel at the best rate available for the hotel product that they choose. They also clearly show that what they truly want is to be able to search across brands and service levels to gain as much information as they can to make the wisest choice. Parents, teacher and coaches are, of course, concerned with the comfort and service levels as it improves the chances of their competitors being triumphant on their trip. This is why offering one resource for them to make that choice is vital to their decision. Going to a specific hotels brand website requires extensive amounts of time to go to various sites and complete the individual RFP’s. With GroupExclusives.com, their profile that they create stays with them across all hotels and is easier to use to search all types of hotels in the area they are traveling to. Q: I AM A THREE OR FOUR STAR HOTEL, WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE?A. GroupExclusives.com is a sports group travel website, however, we are working hard to reach out to Sports related groups as well, such as Alumni, band and other competition related groups. Additionally, three and four star hotels will, many times, have the opportunity to offer lower rated group business to fill need dates, and there is no better person to consider this business than the hotel group sales manager. Additionally, not all leads received through GroupExclusives.com are low rated. The site is designed for ease of use to non-professional travel planners however is open and visible to the more than 30,000 travel agents, amateur and association group travel planners that are not necessarily as price sensitive. Q: WE ALREADY WORK WITH SEVERAL GROUP RFP SITES, HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT? A. There are certainly a few very successful meeting planner websites, however, Group Exclusives is designed and marketed to the vast consumer market of non-professional group travel planners. Colleges and universities have over 40,000 coaches that execute an estimated 24 million room nights each year. When you factor in the extensive marketing, reaching out to over 100,000 youth, amateur and association bookers throughout the country, the users of GroupExclusives.com are anticipated to exceed 140,000 users for collegiate, youth, amateur and association sports teams alone. These users are not industry professionals, they are parents, athletes, coaches and assistant coaches responsible for collegiate, youth, amateur and association travel. GroupExclusives.com is also open and visible to the over 30,000 domestically registered travel agents as a tool, the total users are expected to approach 180,000 unique, individual group bookers. It is anticipated that 55% of all hotel rooms booked in 2009 will be booked online, and that estimate is forecasted to reach 70% over the next 4 years. Now is the time to join what the future holds, and get in early while the site grows. In its early stages, as hotels and restaurants are invited, the sites environment will offer a less competitive group of hotels in your area as the amount of participants is grows. Q: How do I update or make changes to my hotel listing/profile? A. From the home page, select Hotel Enrollment as you did when you created our listing. By selecting Hotel Enrollment from the home page, the log in section in the upper left navigation page changes from Travel Planner Sign in to Hotel Login, you can log on here and make changes to your hotel profile listing
Membership Fees Apply Q: I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MY RESTAURANT LISTED, WHAT DO I DO? A. Invitations are not open to the general public, they are selected directly by the hotels that have the relationships with them. This is not to say that you cannot be listed, simply contact the hotel nearest your restaurant and ask if they can add you to the list of recommended restaurants they have listed on GroupExclusives.com. The listing by your neighboring hotel is free, a basic listing fee of $49.00 per year to have your menu available to the group booker and receive group leads or $199.00 to have your menu loaded, receive group leads, up to 12 photos vs 6 for basic and an additional Capacity Chart option that allows you to showcase your Private dining and events space. Q: I RECEIVED AN INVITATION POSTCARD TO PARTICIPATE, WHAT IS THIS? A. GroupExclusives.com is a travel resource connecting sports group travel bookers with hotels and restaurants surrounding colleges and universities, theaters, venues and museums across the United States. You have been invited to participate because you are a trusted, recognized and recommended restaurant that does business with a hotel nearby your establishment that is listed on GroupExclusives.com. Being listed along with the hotel allows people who are booking groups into the hotel nearby to see you as a trusted restaurant that they do business with. Simply being listed will greatly increase your chances that the group traveling to this hotel will bring their travelers to you. Basic restaurant information is provided by the hotel when they created their profile page, this entry level listing is free. You do have two additional options to increase the likelihood of receiving that group one or more times while they are staying at the hotel. You can choose to become a Basic Member with GroupExclusives.com by uploading your menu for $49.00 per year, this will activate your RFP functionality and allow teams to send their request for proposal directly to you to offer a quote. The second option is an Enhanced Membership that will allow you upload your menu and offers, to receive leads from the groups, add up to 12 photos vs 6 for Basic Membership. Also included in the Enhanced Membership is the ability to create capacity charts with additional photography to highlight your special events and private dining spaces. To upgrade your listing provided form your neighboring hotel, simply select Restaurant Enrollment from the home page. Select your state, then identify your listing. If you are a chain, please select carefully. After selecting your listing you will be guided through a few short steps to create your Basic or Enhanced listing, including phone numbers, email contact for leads and photos. After selecting the publish button, your listing goes live and you will receive an invoice to submit to your accounting office. W9’s are also available after registering from your Restaurant Admin page after registering. Just log in after publishing to print a W9. Groups typically consist of a minimum of 10 guest rooms, so either 10 people for single rooms or 20 people for double rooms. Groups can be as large as the hotel inventory will allow. A large hotel with 300 or 400 hundred rooms may have groups of a couple hundred hungry restaurant goers. Q: How do I update or make changes to my hotel listing/profile? A. From the home page, select Restaurant Enrollment as you did when you created our listing. By selecting Restaurant Enrollment from the home page, the log in section in the upper left navigation page changes from Travel Planner Sign in to Restaurant Login, you can log on here and make changes to your restaurant profile listing
Negotiating a Hotel Contract, Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts of Hotel Contracting
After using GroupExclusives.com’s RFP service to find hotels and rates for your upcoming trip, you may be requested to enter into a contract or an agreement with the hotel, not to worry. Contracts, or agreements as I like to refer to them, are in place to protect both parties and if you understand the ins and outs, this will be a less daunting prospect.
There are some keys areas of hotel agreements that you need to focus on, we will cover them here. Rates, Dates and Space as we say in the industry are the primary factors in starting negotiations. Some more involved components of the agreement lie in the details. Cancellation and Attrition deserve a closer look for a better understanding. After verifying that the rates, dates and space are correct, you will want to pay close attention to the cancellation, attrition, acceptance date and cutoff date. For smaller, sports team travel, many of these are pretty standard and the short versions are typically offered. For larger, more complex groups over special event dates, these may get a bit more involved. Lets start with Cancellation.
Cancellation is a necessary evil on the hotels part. In short, it simply states that the hotel will guarantee you the agreed upon rooms, however, if you cancel, the hotel incurs damages, and those damages are your responsibility. Cancellation is straight forward in the math. If you agree upon 100 rooms for one night at a rate of one dollar, your cancellation is calculated from this point. So for these one hundred rooms at one dollar, the potential damages associated with a cancellation for this group is one hundred dollars. This is different from Attrition, which we will cover next. Cancellation is when then entire group is not going to stay any longer at a hotel that you have an agreement with.
Think through your agreement carefully, most of the hotel companies are enormous corporate entities and these are written with great care and detail. If you are not comfortable that you will be able to meet the agreed upon details, you may want to reconsider entering into an agreement at all, however, it is this agreement that allows the hotel to extend the great discounts you can receive.
Cancellation can come in a few different forms; however the majority of them start with some sort of dollar amount damages immediately following the agreements final signatures. The further out you book, the more room you have to negotiate. This is typically not a concern for sports teams as they rarely cancel and even less often change stay dates. It is when you are entering into an agreement for large groups, tournaments and citywide special events that this can become a bit more restrictive or aggressive.
If you are contracting far in advance, and by far I am referring to 6 months or more, you may have some flexibility in the cancellation clause. If you think about this from the hotels point of view, (and you need to as this is their agreement) they know what their “Booking Window” is, and it varies from hotel to hotel and city by city. Many hotels fill with occupancy in stages and may opt to build a solid base of occupied rooms by offering discounts in advance and signing agreements. Once you sign the agreement, the hotel counts these rooms as sold. When you cancel, you may do so at a time that doesn’t allow the hotel to re-sell the rooms. By talking through the cancellation (again, if it is well in advance) you may find options from the hotel for a sliding scale cancellation. Look to utilize this if you are agreeing upon a call in block with large numbers that you are not certain of performance on. If you have a strong history and know the groups booking behavior, this may or may not be of help to you.
Asking a hotel to include a re-sell clause in their cancellation these days is more plausible in a down economy. If you ask for a re-sell clause in your cancellation or attrition for that matter, you are asking the hotel to attempt to re-sell the unused rooms when you cancel. In a strong economy, this is rare that a hotel would accept this; however you have a fighting chance in a down economy.
If you are thinking about entering into an agreement for a “Call-In Block”, use caution when setting up your agreement. If you block 100 rooms for a particular date, and you are relying on registrants to attend and call in to book a room, your risk of liability increases. This more so related to the Attrition Clause.
Attrition is a clause included in the agreement to protect the hotel from damages if your block does not pick up in full. A typical attrition clause offers 10% (or 90% depending on how it is worded); this 10% is what we refer to as “allowable attrition” and gives you some wiggle room from the original commitment. With attrition, unlike cancellation, it is written in to protect both parties. It says if you agree upon 100 room nights for one night that you will deliver at least 90 of those rooms. The other 10 rooms is the 10%, or your wiggle room. If you only produce 90 occupied room nights for that one night, you do not owe the hotel damages. Be careful to determine if the attrition is cumulative or nightly. Let’s look at both scenarios, it can be very helpful and save you a great deal of cash if you get this right.
Attrition written as cumulative covers a stay for more than one day in most cases, but for this case lets stick with the 100 rooms for one night. It is most likely that you will be given a cumulative attrition clause, this is better for you if you are uncertain of your travel patterns for individuals. This usually is not the case with sports teams as they most often have organized travel and often travels together, this attrition clause becomes much more important if you agree to multiple nights and you block is a call in. So let’s say that you block these 100 rooms for this one night. As people call in, they may opt to arrive early or stay later; this is where cumulative really helps you. Suppose the pattern looked more like this when the date of arrival or cutoff dates has arrived. 25, 75, 10. 75 being the night you originally agreed upon. Because you have a cumulative attrition clause, you get credit for all 110 room nights, and thus surpassed you’re agreed upon block. This is good news for you and the hotel, more for you if you receive a commission on the rooms. Just be certain to understand if the hotel can offer the rate 3 days prior and 3 days post, you should ask for this in the agreement, and you should strive for a cumulative not nightly, attrition.
Attrition written on a nightly basis is often required by the hotel for special events or other circumstances beyond your control. A nightly attrition would, using the same scenario, cost you the value of 15 rooms per nights. This is the 75 you produced, less then 90 agreed upon on “peak” (remember your 10% wiggle room). You get no credit for the pre and post days. Keeping in mind that pre and post days are at the discretion of the hotel and are driven by various market conditions. Not all hotels in all situations will even be able to take additional rooms outside of your requested dates. It is worth asking though if you are confronted with a nightly attrition.
So aside from the rates, dates, space, cancellation and attrition, there are just a few more important elements to understand to successfully negotiate the best possibly deal, these are the acceptance date, cutoff date and the dreaded deposits.
Acceptance Date is the date set by the hotel to agree to or pass on the contract. There is no standard for this; it all depends on the hotel and the market you are working with. If the hotel and destination is extremely popular your acceptance date will be short, as short at 24 hours. Many hotels will tend to offer 7 – 21 days to review the agreement and return with your signature. Be aware, that if you don’t return the agreement by the acceptance date, the hotel can and most times will, release the block of rooms they are holding for you to sell to another group. Also, if you are confronted with a very short acceptance date, this is a signal that something strong is happening in the market and the hotel is most likely reviewing multiple bids for the same date. In an effort for the hotel to maximize their revenues, they need to review all of these and holding space for someone that may not commit is a delicate balancing act by the hotel sales people. Also, be aware that if a sales person sends you an agreement, and they don’t follow up before the acceptance date, they will most likely drop your rooms from the hold to pursue other groups, possibly a better fit or more profitable. If you are going to exceed to acceptance date, be sure to reach out to your hotel contact and ask for a later date IN WRITING.
Cutoff Date is the date in which your discounted rate no longer is available to attendees. This typically is 21 days prior to arrival, however can vary and be negotiated. If you are traveling with a team, this usually is not a challenge, it’s when you are trying to get people to sign up for your event and don’t have a history of booking behavior that this can be quite damaging.
Remember the Attrition Clause; this is where the Cutoff date is related to the Attrition. Sticking with the same scenario, you have committed to 100 rooms for one night; you have a 21 day cutoff. If you reach your cutoff date and only 50 rooms have booked into your block, you are now liable for the attrition and damages to the hotel for the remaining 40 rooms, (don’t forget your 10% wiggle room). A good sales person at a hotel should keep you close to how many rooms you have picked up. Closer to the date, this should be done weekly. If the hotel sales person does not offer it, call and pester them for it, after all, if the commitment is not met, they will certainly let you know that you need to pay for the difference.
If you find yourself in this situation, there are times that you can call the hotel and ask for cutoff date to be pushed back a few days or a week. There is no way to know if this can be done unless you speak with the hotel. Conditions and occupancy can change extremely fast from one moment to the next. If you are attending a large event in a city, they most likely will not be able to do this, however, if the hotel is not going to sell out, they may entertain the extension.
The last critical component of the agreement for most people is the deposits or deposit schedule. Once again, for a sports team traveling, the funds are allocated and easy to pay in advance. If your reason for traveling is more along the lines of membership to make the trip successful, deposits may become quite daunting. Two deposit setups are usually possible, deciding which one is right for you will just take a quick conversation with your hotel contact.
Deposits can be outright simple, meaning you owe the full amount by a certain date before check in or they can be set to a schedule. To explain the schedule I like to use the family reunion scenario as I find it to be the simplest to understand.
If you are planning a family reunion, and your family is, oh, say, 200 strong. You will want to start planning for 200, however, you are just not certain how many will be able to make it, or more importantly, who can afford to stay at the hotel you selected. After finding the right hotel choice on GroupExclusives.com you decide to lock in the discounted rate for 200 people. Since the reunion doesn’t take place for another year, for example, you may want to stagger your deposits over a time frame that is best for your attendees. Maybe you offer the family members options to make four payments over the next year to pay for their attendance at this event; this four payment schedule can be worked into the agreement with the hotel. As long as the deposits are all received before arrival, AND there are no major events that are selling the city out of hotel rooms, you should have no challenges setting this deposit schedule in your favor.
The final agreement clause that I think deserves some attention is the force Majeure clause. Often used in many contracts even outside of hotel contracts, this clause frees both parties from liabilities or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstances beyond the control of the parties that prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligation. Examples of these could include Acts of God (Fire, Flood, and Earthquake Etc.), war, strike, riot, and crime or possibly the latest addition, terrorist strike or activity. Be cautious if you are trying to invoke this and know your facts. Many times the clause is written to protect the hotel. For example, and earthquake in California that impedes or halts air traffic to your hotel in New Jersey may not be allowable as the hotel in New Jersey could still provide services and is otherwise unaffected. If handled delicately, you can usually come to terms with the hotel in this arena.
There may be several other factors that are important to your hotel stay that may be added, such as food and beverage or special needs. Food and Beverage is also impacted by cancellation and attrition. Food and Beverage contribution, as it is referred to in the industry, can have individual cancellation and attrition or it can all be combined into the original cancellation and attrition of the overall contract in terms of a dollar amount of the program or event.
Here are my recommendation of the top ten do’s and don’t of hotel group contracts.
1. DO book as far as possible in advance and Negotiate! Most hotels sell their available inventory much like airlines do.. 2. DO strive for a cumulative attrition clause, not nightly. 3. DO set a comfortable deposit schedule that fits your funding schedule 4. DO ask for Concessions (These are the “freebies” such as free nights or free upgrades. Some larger hotels may offer in room amenities, spa and activities as concessions). Discounts on Food and Beverage, or ancillary revenues provided to the hotel. Many times in a down economy you will find great room rate deals in upscale or even luxury hotels, however the food prices are not so attractive. Worldwide, there are many talented chefs that work in the hotel industry, if you cannot negotiate an acceptable discount off menu pricing, inquire if the hotel can create custom menus to meet your budget. 5. DO seek concessions. These are the “freebies” such as free nights or free upgrades. Some larger hotels may offer in room amenities, spa and activities as concessions. These all have a dollar value, and face it if you were going to do it anyway, you might as well try to save some money. 6. DO ask if the rate offered is the very best available. Many hotels negotiate and settle on a mutually beneficial rate, however if you only take the first rate, you may have been able to do better. 7. DO eat at the hotel or partake in other possible revenue generating activities at the hotel and be sure to include them in the contract negotiations. The higher the overall revenue is for the hotel, the more flexibility there may be in the rate discount. Many groups plan to eat somewhere else why they are in town. GroupExclusives.com offers restaurant RFP service as well, however, the more business you can place at the hotel; the better the deal is apt to be. 8. DO check with the city’s convention and visitors bureau for large events. If your dates are flexible, avoiding these peak demand periods can save you a great deal of money. 9. DO investigate the hotel before committing. Jimmy Legg, founder of GroupExcusives.com recommends tripadvisor.com or Oyster.com for insightful, non-bias, consumer to consumer feedback. 10. DO understand Force Majeure in a contract and how it can impact your travels and financial responsibility. See GroupExclusvies.com/FAQ.php for all the details of this creative clause.
1. DO NOT exceed your acceptance or cutoff dates, both can be very expensive both financially and emotionally. 2. DO NOT contract with a hotel for a call in block and assume people are booking into it. Often times they may choose a nearby hotel that is more affordable to them, leaving you stuck with the damages. Stay in touch with your hotel contact closely as your cut-off and arrival date approaches. 3. DO NOT cancel if possible! Moving forward with an agreement after it has been finalized is most times a better option. Cancellation is often 100% of the promised revenue. If your attendance is far below what you anticipated, working with the attrition clause may be the better financial approach. If cancellation is absolutely necessary you may want to investigate a rebooking option that allows you to cancel the current trip and rebook it for another set of dates that may end up working out better for you. If you go this route, I highly recommend booking immediately for the new dates. If you choose to rebook within 12 months, and the dates you pick are not available, you still owe the hotel the money. 4. DO NOT enter into a contract for your wedding or social event until you know what your attendees are willing to pay. If you choose a lux, swanky hotel for your wedding or event, and the room rate is high; your guests may opt to stay at a nearby hotel that is more affordable, leaving you with the contract damages for rooms that you did not fill. 5. DO NOT commit to the first hotel that you like. Search the market for the best value. All hotels offer deals based on their needs. The hotel you like might simply be too popular over your desired dates, and in return your expenses reflect. There may be some better options out there that may meet or exceed your desired result. 6. DO NOT forget to check on valet charges, taxes and gratuity as these are the most common unexpected fees. These should be clearly listed on the agreement. 7. DO NOT commit to an agreement if you are uncertain of the group you are trying to negotiate for.
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