Add value to your event with Build your own concessions at InterContinental Hotels in San Francisco!

Are you cashing in on these savings opportunities for your event?

If you’re booking an event that includes 101 room nights or more on peak, be sure to include a few concessions to drive additional value for your client. Let's make it simple and what's important for your clients or you.

What are concessions? They are the “special offers”, typically discounts or complimentary services you would like the hotel to include in their proposal for your client. Those deals can include; complimentary WiFi, suite upgrades, food & beverage discounts, VIP amenities, AV discounts, and more this may vary based on the location of the hotel and the value of the business. These extras can help make the experience for your clients attendees that much better, without breaking their budget and going the extra mile to obtain additional value. Determine what's important for clients, wish list and wants.

Hotels expect to see a few concessions included in your RFP, and it helps me understand what is important to your event to deliver a knockout proposal, increase exposure. Here are some of the most popular hotel concessions to consider for your RFP, along with a description of how to request them. We’ll start with some basics, then we’ll cover some advanced concessions that can drive a ton of value to your event with the next post.

Basic Concessions:

Complimentary Guest Rooms:

Possibly the most popular request, this concession gives your client (company) “credit” for your group’s guest room pickup by rebating one room-night’s charge for every x number of room-nights that your group uses.

Request: “1 complimentary room-night for every 50 rooms picked up, cumulative.” (This is often abbreviated to “1 per 50 comp or 1:50.”)

For example, if you pick up 50 room-nights, no matter how many days it takes to get to 50 room-nights, you’ll get one room-night free. Pick up 150 room-nights, you’ll get 3 complimentary room-nights.

Suite Upgrades

Suites are great for your VIP attendees and also provide flexible space for small receptions and meetings. But suites are also expensive. If your group needs suites, asking for this can save your company $1,000 or more with each meeting and hotels with excess suite capacity are often happy to write a couple of upgrades into your meeting contract.

Request: “One [two/three /etc.] suite upgrade(s) at group rate.”

Ask for at least one suite upgrade for your group, even if you have just 101 rooms per night. If suites are important, then add additional suite upgrade requests for every 50 regular rooms that you’re blocking but remember don't ask for the moon and stars.

Complimentary Meeting Room Rental If Food & Beverage Minimum Is Met

Hotels love it when you spend money in catering. That’s why they’ll usually ask you to spend a minimum amount. The point here is that if you’re not too space-intensive, you can try to leverage your catering spend to offset room rental.

Request: “No room rental if food and beverage minimum is exceeded.”

It’s a quid pro quo of sorts. You’re saying that you agree to spend at least the F&B minimum; in return, you’d like the hotel to waive any fees for your meeting space. In general, if your space requirements are in line with your guest room needs and F&B spend, then you have a pretty decent chance of getting this concession. 

Understand your meeting value:

Sounds obvious, right? You’d be surprised at how many planners go into negotiations without knowing what value their meeting will bring to the venue.

Hotels base meeting value on a specific set of criteria. Focus on these key value generators, and your bargaining power grows:

• Booking window (are you booking next week or next year?) I have amazing offers for December 2017, Short term window and certain months in 2018. Let's talk about your next program and determine how I can assist in executing a successful event.
• Power = Meetings within six months unless your group is arriving during a city-wide or a compressed dates, arrival and departure patterns may also impact your room to negotiate added value concessions or the viability to want your group.
• Flexibility
• Power = Ask the hotel to offer their best date - provided that your dates are flexible and don'd ask for the entire year, that would be wasting your time and mine
• Catering spend
• Power = Ask what the hotel’s F&B minimum is over your dates. If you’ll spend more, then you have the power provided that the dates and space matches the required F&B for the dates requested
• Space-to-rooms ratio (how much meeting space you need for each guest room you’re blocking)
• Power = Learn to calculate your SRR (see below). Then ask what the hotel’s SRR is over your dates. If you’re requirements are less, then you have the power. This is extremely important; too much space can cause a denial, more specifically break-outs, style and design coupled with separate food and beverage locations. 

Flexibility:

Sure, your dates aren’t flexible. But do you know what you’re missing by saying you’re not flexible? You’ll NEVER know if you continue to tell venues: “My dates are not flexible.” Arrival and Departure pattern maybe declined

Here’s why. Hotels are constantly working to complete their “occupancy puzzle.” A minor adjustment to your arrival/departure dates may fit your group perfectly into the hotel’s “puzzle.” The right hotel will often incentivize you by offering special pricing and cost saving concessions in return for your flexibility.

Motivate your venues to offer up an alternative by saying: “Although my dates are firm, I might be willing to explore alternate dates if you make it worth my while to change.”

This sentence can save you some time when you’re having trouble finding availability. It also can open up your options and save money at the same time.

Know your history:

When you provide hotels with two or more years of history on your meeting, you show it has consistent room pick-up, indicating your group will again meet its room block commitment. You also enable hoteliers to forecast their guest room inventory more accurately, so they have a better chance of selling out the hotel.

You can build meeting credibility by sharing key information such as: Does your group historically come within 5% of meeting its room block? Do you exceed the food and beverage minimum? Does your organization make use of the full range of hotel services? Do you book your meeting or event 30-90 days out, enabling the hotel to release available rooms and sell them for more than the group rate you secured? These factors all add to your meeting value. Also focus on what you’ll do to drive attendance (key marketing tactics, size of your target audience, big-name speakers you’ve confirmed for the event, etc.).

The best time to share your meeting history is right at the start, when you send your meeting request. Hotels receive scores of RFPs daily. One of the biggest ways to make yours stand out is to show your meeting is a great fit, having taken place successfully at similar hotels in the past.

No history? No problem. For first-time meetings, the key is still to make hotels understand why your meeting should be taken seriously. Is the meeting mandatory? Do you have history from other meetings that are similar? Share this info with the sales manager. You can also provide history on other meetings you’ve held with similar size, rates and target attendees to show you’ve driven results at comparable hotels in the past.

Less is More: Leverage space-to-rooms ratios

For successful negotiations, one value generator is sorely overlooked and it happens to be key to driving a fantastic deal: the space-to-rooms ratio (SRR).

Hotels don’t want to be left with a lot of available guest rooms and no meeting space to offer. Knowing how your group affects their meeting space inventory – and how you can help them free up space – will make hotels work hard for your business.

Your goal comes down to a simple equation: SRR down = Concessions up. Learn a few basics and use SRR to maximize savings:

Know the space-to-room ratio

Every hotel has its own SRRs. Ask for each property’s ratio up front to better understand their expectations. To find your own group’s SRR, dig into your meeting history to determine how many meeting room seats and guest rooms your group will need each day. Here’s the calculation:

SRR = # of seats x 20 sq ft divided by your room block that night

If you’re below the hotel’s ratio, you have more bargaining power! If you’re over, work with your hotel partner to help them free up some space.

Lower your SRR in ways that will have little-to-no impact on your meeting.

Set up your meeting room on the first main day attendees arrive. If you set up before your room block starts, you’ll dramatically reduce your chance of finding availability, let along scoring a great deal. Reuse your main meeting room for breakout sessions and dinners to further cut space needs. On the last day of your meeting when everyone checks out, your meeting space needs are high but guest room need is minimal-to-none. Ask the hotel about holding breakouts in another space. A restaurant, suites or patio could be a nice change of pace for a last half-day of meetings.

Pick room setups that improve the ratio.

For example, banquet-style tables accommodate more people than a hollow-square setup. Use a setup that drives your SRR down. Then work with the sales manager to return the favor with additional concessions.

Meeting costs may be rising, but you’re building credibility and driving value for your hotel partner. Use your leverage to gain valuable concessions, and you’re well on your way to mastering the art of negotiations.

For additional information check out InterContinental Mark Hopkins and InterContinental San Francisco!

Are you ready to Book your next event at InterContinental Hotels San Francisco? Lets talk 415-616-6636, [email protected]