ROOM BLOCK MANAGEMENT DATA

Are you using your room block management data to its full potential?

 
As a Housing Manager, you’re collecting a wealth of data regarding the profile, behaviour, and preferences of your event attendees. This blog post will teach you how to analyze this room block management data to (1) create a better experience for your attendees, (2) drive attendance to future events, and finally (3) better track your ROE (return on events). Read on to learn more!

Room block management data

Number 1

How room block management data creates a better experience for your attendees:

 

  1. How did attendees find the hotel reservation website?
    Did they find the hotel reservation website through a direct link, organic search, referral website, social media channel, or an event-specific email? Meetingmax clients have the ability to access their unique Google Analytics data; through this, you can drill down to find the acquisition of your attendees. By reviewing where attendees found the hotel reservation website, you can modify your marketing tactics. For example, if attendees aren’t referring through social media posts or event-specific emails then you can review these mediums and see what needs to be changed. It could be as simple as increasing the size and visibility of the “book your hotel rooms” button. Additionally, you’ll want to confirm that the event website is your number one referral; if it’s not, then work with the event planner to improve the communication around event hotel information on the main event website.

    2.  

  2. What technology did attendees book with?
    Google Analytics can show you which browser attendees were on (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, etc) and which device (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet) they used to complete their hotel reservation. Use this data to test your event websites on the applications your attendees are using.
     
    Raise your hand if you’re guilty of only testing on chrome/desktop? I know I am as it’s the browser and device I’m on 95% of the time. This can become an issue if 70% of your attendees are booking on mobile phones. In this case, you need to test the event hotel reservation website on mobile and desktop. Some things to keep in mind… Is the formatting okay? Is the verbiage succinct? Large text can work fine on desktop but be too lengthy on mobile (See example below). it’s about finding a balance based on what technology your guests are using.
    Meetingmax booking site on desktop computer compared to mobile device
  3. Where are the attendees located?
    Attendee location is helpful for repeat events. You can find this data in Google Analytics or in the Meetingmax application. If you know where the majority of guests are coming from, you can tailor your language to them and/or highlight helpful features. For example, if the majority of guests are international make sure they know about the Google translate tool on the booking page. If most of your guests are from out of town, tailor your ads to encourage them to “live like a local” with local suggestions.

    4.  

  4. How did attendees complete their hotel reservations?
    Understanding the attendee booking method is helpful for repeat events. The Meetingmax application tracks “received by” for all reservations. This informs you whether attendees booked their hotel reservations via the web, email, phone, or other. It’s simple to sort the reservation data table by this column to view all “received by” data for your selected event. How doe this help you? For example, say that you have 500 total reservations; 115 made by web and 385 made by phone. Knowing that phone calls are so heavy for this event you can improve the guest experience by ensuring phone centers are ready and applicable phone numbers are promoted. Alternatively, if you wish to change this behaviour and have more guests book online, you can create content to educate guests on how to book by web.

 
Now that we’ve reviewed how to improve the attendee booking experience, let’s review some data points that can help to increase event attendance.

Number 2
 
How room block management data drives attendance to repeat events:

 

  1. Where are your attendees located?
    Attendee location is helpful for repeat events. You can find this data in Google Analytics or in the Meetingmax application. If we know where the majority of guests are coming from, we can market to those regions. Mostly locals? Create a “staycation” package where guests stay overnight at the host hotels rather than commuting home. Mostly out-of-towners? Market local excursions and provide travel information to make it easy to book within the block.

    2.  

  2. How long do attendees typically stay?
    Do guests arrive well in advance of the event or stay an extra day to sightsee? Or do guests arrive late and leave early in order to minimize time away from the office? By knowing how long attendees are staying, you can tailor your messaging and service offering to suit their needs; whether that means providing discounts on city tours or better accommodating late check-ins / early check-outs. The Summary page in Meetingmax is an easy way to view your previous event hotel room pickup.
    Meetingmax Summary Page - Room Block Management Data

    3.  

  3. Is there a hotel that always sells out first?
    Do you have one hotel that always books right away? Or is there a certain price point that always books first? By reviewing where attendees have stayed in past years, you can create customized offers that take these accounts into consideration.

    4.  

  4. How many guests are repeat attendees?
    How many of your attendees come to your event year after year? Consider enticing last year’s attendees to register for this year’s event by giving them a special repeat attendee discount or by using their past preferences to send them targeted emails to book in at their preferred hotel.

    5.  

  5. How did attendees find the hotel reservation website?
    Referring back to point 1 in the section above; use Google Analytics to determine if attendees found the hotel reservation website through a direct link, organic search, referral website, social media channel, or an event-specific email. Reviewing where attendees found the hotel reservation website can modify your marketing tactics. For example, one client was promoting their event hotel reservations website on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook brought in over 400 referrals while Twitter was less than 10. Knowing this, the event marketing team can focus all of their efforts and ad spending on Facebook as they are seeing a much better return on that channel.

 
Finally, let’s use our data to prove the value of our events.

Number 3
 
How room block management data tracks ROE (Return on Events):

 

  1. Hotel room block revenue per event
    We created a basic revenue calculator for housing managers to highlight the financial impact their work has on their business. This revenue calculator tallies the four most common event housing revenue streams: rebates, commission, service fees, and cancellation penalties. Access the tool below to input your event information (room nights, reservations, average hotel rates, expected cancellations), and play out various A/B scenarios to see what makes the most cents (get it?) for your events. Adding a nominal service fee could generate thousands more in revenue to offset costs or bring in profit

    Revenue Calculator

  2. Economic impact
    It’s important to use your room block management data as inputs to calculate an event’s economic impact. Common data points are total guests per event, total hotel spend, and the average length of stay.
     
    Total guests per event: Pull this from registration and/or Meetingmax. It’s helpful to compare housing to registration as sometimes attendees will bring family or friends with them to the event that aren’t in the registration software but are accounted for in housing.
     
    Total room nights x nightly rates: This data gives you the total spend on local hotels per event.
     
    The average length of stay: Based on this you can calculate a rough cost of daily spend per attendee for everyday items like food, and additional spending from shopping/ tourism activities

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  3. Number of leads captured
    If you’re a convention and visitor bureau or an event planner then it’s important to capture leads from your events to market either a return to the destination or upsell on other events. Note, due to privacy laws, you cannot use any attendee contact information in your housing software for anything that doesn’t pertain to their hotel reservation. However, if they CHOOSE to opt-in to receive more information then you can add them to your database. Meetingmax recommends a double-opt-in strategy, for example, if a guest requests more information send them an email asking them to opt-in (a second time) before adding them to your database. There are a few ways that you can manage this in Meetingmax if generating leads is important to you;

    • Optional questions – Do you want to learn more about (destination/organization)?
    • Embed a form on the hotel confirmation page
    • Link to a website where the sign-up form is listed

Keen to learn more?

 

Check out this post on how to prove the value of event housing to your stakeholders:

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