Janice Hough is a Bay Area travel agent who writes a very useful and readable blog under the Tripso banner.
She recently published one I really liked concerning the use of conference and meeting rates at hotels. This would also apply to other events such as weddings, big family reunions, etc., where a block of rooms is secured.
Rather than paraphrase what she wrote, I’ll just give you a link to her post and encourage you to read it, along with three brief anecdotes of my own to buttress Janice’s observations.
– My partner and a colleague of his went some years ago to Las Vegas for a convention. I can’t remember the specific amounts but there was a convention rate available at the Las Vegas Hilton. I researched it and found a hotel-only package deal for the Hilton offered by a tour operator that saved their company about $200 each.
– One of my partner’s employees went in May to Orlando for a conference. The conference hotel had a rate he could book through a linked website that happened to be Hotels.com. The rate was $239 per night. However I found and booked for him a simple AAA rate for $215 at the same property, which for four nights including tax, saved the company $130.
– A client went this past weekend to a conference in Park, City, Utah. He asked me to compare the conference rate with the best price I could find. In this instance, the conference rate was the best rate and I advised him to use it.
Is there a moral here?
Yes.
When it comes to conference and meeting rates, as The Miracles sang in 1960, You better shop around.
