Looking to take out stress of booking group travel for an event?
If you’ve been tasked with arranging travel for multiple attendees from multiple destinations with multiple requirements, the prospect can feel daunting. Check out these tips from our Global Head of Event Travel – Offline, Scott Blondel, on how to plan stress-free event travel.
Establish the event’s objective
No two events are the same. Each one has its own unique audience and theme. It might be a company meeting, a conference, or incentive, and each has a different tone and purpose. That’s why it’s so important to understand what your company wants the event to achieve. Ask: what the main goals are and what the return on investment is that the company is looking for. Understanding your event goals is key at the very beginning, before planning the travel even starts.
Plan well in advance
For a typical mid-sized event, between 200 to 250 attendees, you really don’t want to leave the planning any later than three months before. As event planners know, there’s a significant amount of work involved in the setup.
Planning in advance also means everyone is booked and ticketed in a timely manner, which helps the company stay within budget and secure the best fares and availability. If bookings are left to the last minute, you’ll often face higher costs, or the company may need to adjust its travel policy to accommodate limited, last-minute transportation options.
While three months is the general timeframe for standard events, for larger-scale events, like a global partner conference for a law or private equity firm, it would be advisable to begin planning around 12 months in advance.
Refer to your company’s travel policy
Understanding your company’s travel policy is key to how and when you book everyone’s transportation. For example, if your company has 100 people attending an event, find out whether having everyone take the same flight aligns with company guidelines.
Furthermore, consider individual needs and levels of seniority. Does the policy require that bookings be tiered? These details all matter when planning event travel.
Influence stakeholders on event destinations
You might be tasked with organizing a 600-person conference where one of the requirements is that all attendees have to stay in the same hotel at which the conference is held. Can you get all attendees to that destination? Sometimes a location looks perfect on paper, but if it’s not accessible for the attendees, it’s unlikely to work.
And remember that if you’re planning a global meeting for your company event, find out if different teams want to hold tag-on team meetings, either pre- or post-event. That means attendees will want to travel to and from the event destination at different times. So it’s important to source a destination that can accommodate this too. It’s crucial to have all this necessary information researched and ready to influence the event’s stakeholders on a particular destination.
Engage with experts
Organizing group travel is complex – by engaging with our experts, we guide clients through the entire process, applying best practices, understanding the client’s brief, and identifying the most effective solutions.
Travel management companies also have solid, on-the-ground destination knowledge. We can rely on our offices and colleagues around the world. For example, if we’re managing an event in Madrid or Barcelona, our teams in these destinations can support in locations where they have the knowledge and expertise. Their familiarity with the area and its transportation links allows for a more tailored and seamless experience.
Centralizing everything through an events travel team also delivers added value. If a client is already working with us, whether on events or corporate travel, traveler profiles and key data such as passport details, frequent flyer information, and dietary preferences are already on hand. This not only streamlines the planning process but also improves the attendee experience before the event even begins.
There’s also a strong cost saving advantage as experience and partnerships mean securing the best value fares. Yet it goes beyond just price. An events team also focuses on flexible terms, such as securing name changes up to 30 days prior to travel. And in the case of disruptions or unexpected incidents, all relevant travel information integrates into our traveler tracking systems, giving clients real-time visibility into where their people are in the world.
Utilize event-focused technology
Our partnership with Cvent allows clients to coordinate every part of the event lifecycle through a single, integrated platform. This integration starts with securely capturing all the necessary attendee data, meaning an immediate start on group travel arrangements, providing suitable options without delays or back-and-forth communication. If any requests require approval from the event organizer, those can be processed efficiently too.
Our reporting suite, including arrivals and departures reports, is configured to upload directly into the Cvent platform. This gives clients real-time access to vital information at any time of day.
Plus, we can manage group airline seat blocks via the platform. If we’ve secured seats with an airline, we can upload those directly into Cvent, which allows us to monitor and maximize usage. This helps ensure clients are getting the best value from their bookings and drives cost savings throughout the event planning process.
Get in touch
Email us helloUS@reedmackay.com to discuss all your event management and corporate travel needs.
