How to Negotiate with a Hotel for Your Community Event
I’ve worked with a lot of tech companies AND digital entrepreneurs over the years, and almost always, folks try to convince me their event is best NOT at a hotel.
“We want our event to be cool and hip! And hotels are corporate and boring.”
I get it.
Doing a large scale retreat (over 50 people) is likely going to be more cost efficient and less labor intensive at a hotel.
As long as you know how to negotiate.
For context, the hotel industry is directly related to the economy — that is when there’s more (corporate) money to spend, hotels generally are less willing to negotiate. When you have a global pandemic or the greatest recession in 80 years, hotels are doing everything they can to sell you space.
So, be sure to note what the economy is doing when you’re starting your negotiation.
Why I love hotels
I’ve been in events for 15 years.
When I was younger, I loved an alternative event.
A great outdoor location, a beautiful tented site, gorgeous glamping accommodations?
I’M IN!
Meanwhile, the more I did events, the more I realized:
The more rustic/retreat-like your event is, the more labor you’ll need, and thus, the more expensive it will be.
That said, if you’ve decided on finding a hotel for your event, knowing how to negotiate can help you save money and generate better results for your bottom line.
Why negotiate?
Because hotels EXPECT you to negotiate.
If you don’t negotiate at all, they win.
A fun fact lots of you don’t know: a hotel’s main key performance metric is average nightly occupancy.
Meaning hotels want your room nights — the meeting space, the food, the audio visual? All that’s pennies compared to booking out their room nights.
So, that said, the more room nights you can book, the more leverage you have.
I love looking for a boutique hotel that serves about 25% more folks than my group size (so if I’m planing on 100 attendees, I want to look for a hotel with about 120 rooms).
The reason I do this is because if we book the hotel, it’ll likely meet their average nightly occupancy rate goals (good for them!), which means they’ll be vying for our business over a hotel with 1000 rooms.
Okay, so how do I negotiate?
The first step is reaching out for an RFP (request for proposal).
I usually don’t bother with the RFP software’s on most hotel websites, preferring instead to find the sales director’s email directly (which can be found by googling the property name and “sales director”).
Then, I give them:
+Guest count
+#of days of the retreat
+How many rooms we need (kings vs. double queens)
+Meals (breakfast, lunch, snacks, reception, etc.)
+Meeting space needed
+Audio visual needed
The sales manager will likely get on the phone with you and ask you a lot of questions.
They’ll probably ask you what your expected nightly room rate is…and I always tell them a range that is 10% - 30% lower than what I actually can afford (so if you want rooms to be at $199, you tell them you need rooms between $149 - $179).
Then, they’ll send you a proposal.
It will have a lot of info, but the most important ones are:
Room rates
Food & beverage minimum (aka how much you need to spend on food and beverage for your group during your event)
Taxes & fees (these make or break budgets because they’re often 20% - 35%, so take note!)
Attrition clauses (the percentage of rooms you are responsible for booking for your event. If you want to reserve 100 rooms, and your attrition clause is 80%, the hotel is saying they’ll hold 100 rooms, but you only need to book 80 of them. If you book 79, you still have to pay for the 80th room. Attrition clauses are huge! So pay attention.)
Concessions (my fave!)
Pro tip: A "concession" is a freebie that the hotel gives you as a "thank you" for buying in bulk. You usually get better concessions with larger hotels or hotel room blocks because you're taking away the leg work from the Sales Manager by booking lots of rooms for them.
Typical concessions include:
•Free meeting space (with any retreat or event, this should ALWAYS be on the table)
•Audio visual comps (lowering service prices for conference services like A/V a certain percentage)
•Room comps (1 free room for every 10 booked)
•Free upgrades to VIP guests
If you're booking a large group (or any sized group), ask for concessions, no matter what. They have them to give, but she who asks shall receive.
After you get the proposal, you get a first go around.
Usually, in the first negotiation, I try to negotiate on the things that are most important (room rates, attrition clauses, 1 free room for every 10 nights booked if the event is large enough, additional concessions, etc.)
You’ll probably only get about 1/2 of the concessions (maybe), so make sure you pick ones you really need to move the needle. AKA sometimes you can let room rate be a little higher if folks are booking their own rooms, so you can negotiate lower on the fees.
Then, the hotel will likely come back with a counter proposal.
They’ll give you approximately 1/2 your requests (or meet you in the middle on other requests).
Hopefully, by now, you’re within your event’s budget — which means anything you’re currently asking for is gravy.
Pro Tip: Get at least two competing quotes from similar hotels. That will help you leverage those proposals against the one you have, and will give you more negotiating power.
On the last “go around”, I’d still ask for a few concessions (maybe some additional upgrades, free WiFi…anything that will sweeten your deal or save you some money).
You’re done!
One last thing…if you are booking with a loyalty property (Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, etc.), you can get MASSIVE points for all the hotel rooms and money you’ll spend on food and beverage.
So if you don’t have a loyalty credit card, I recommend opening one for this event and putting all the event related expenses on this credit card.
Have you ever negotiated with hotels before?