Accommodation made simple


Accommodation Site
March 11, 2019 / Posted by Cheryl Brunwin / in Event planning / 1453 Views

Want to make your delegate accommodation process simple and easy? Did you know here at First Choice Conference & Events we offer a specialised accommodation booking service.

With our expertise we’ll create an online, self-booking tool for your delegates. Our personalised accommodation booking platforms are designed by us entirely bespoke for your event and include a live booking facility with instant confirmation of bookings. With over 400,000 hotels available from global chains to unique independent properties worldwide, booked and confirmed within 60 seconds, from a mobile device or desktop.

Additionally, and unlike other hotel booking sites, you can choose to allow the delegate complete freedom to book their own choice of accommodation or restrict them to the specific hotels where we have negotiated special event rates on your behalf.  Or you can even choose to have a mixture of both!  The accommodation availability presented can be vast with a range of properties to suit all budgets or can be very specific to a handful of preferred hotels or anywhere in between.

A range of different delegate payment options are available, and any number of different rates and/or packages can be loaded for delegates to book.  The system also tracks all bookings, amendments and cancellations so full reporting is available at any point during the lead up to your event.

I’m intrigued and I want to know more – see faq

 

I have a huge event that requires a complex and expansive range of accommodation available to my delegates.  I do not want to get involved in the accommodation side, can you handle all of it?

Yes, we’d love to!  We can take care of all the bedroom rate negotiations, booking and even contracting the allocations on your behalf.  We’ll build the portal and troubleshoot right through lead up, event days and afterwards.  You can have regular reporting/ status updates or have them ad-hoc or simply the final status after all departures.

 

We create a webpage for our conference and would like the accommodation to link seamlessly to this, will the delegates feel like they are still booking accommodation for our event?

Of course, we can add your logo to the accommodation booking site and ours too if you’d prefer so that the delegate know they’re dealing with another company but still booking accommodation for your event. We can even name the hotels anything you like e.g. Speaker Hotel.

 

I would like to be able to see how many delegates have booked where, can you show me?

We can show provide reports at any point or even have the system set up so the number of booked/available bedrooms is shown on the actual booking platform itself.

 

When it gets near to the event and perhaps my allocations of bedrooms have finished, inevitably some people will not have booked their accommodation, can they still use the booking platform?

Absolutely.  Firstly, part of our service would be to negotiate extensions to allocation release schedules wherever possible, if requested.  The platform can also continue to display the preferred hotels and where preferred rates are no longer available simply display best available rate.  The platform can also display any other hotels within the search parameters with best rates so the delegate can adhere to a budget or location or any other preference.

 

Distance from the event venue is important, is the search location specific?

The platform clearly shows the venue where the event/conference is being held in an interactive google map.  It then uses this a reference to state ‘distance from’ for any accommodation options that it displays.  For example, a delegate could order the hotel results by ‘distance’ if this was their most importance factor to choose their accommodation.

 

I’m cautious I don’t want the delegates to spend a long time booking a room, how easy is the delegates journey on the site?

VERY easy, a delegate can click their booking link and have an e-mail confirmation for their chosen hotel within 3 clicks or around 60 seconds depending how quickly you can type your name, address and card details!

 

Will they get a confirmation?

Yes, and they’re very clear, containing all the information your delegate will need.

 

If the guest needs to amend or cancel does that have to be done manually?

No, they can simply go back to the same platform enter their booking reference and make any changes required. EG a cancellation would be …click the cancel button.

 

Some of our delegates like to talk to a person for queries and/ or advice, would they have to talk to individual hotels?

No, we can offer a support line that would be answered by one of our small team of experts who would know about the event, the booking platform and the hotels concerned.