Jeff Porter |
Travel is projected to add a record $11.1 trillion to the global economy in 2024. According to the Sports Business Journal, 63% of respondents in a 2023 travel study for the sports sector identified youth and amateur sporting events as the top generator of room nights. Economically, the sports travel industry had a direct economic impact of $52.2 billion in 2023, driven by over 200 million travelers and 73 million room nights, according to the Sports ETA State of the Industry Report.
This surge in travel, particularly for youth sports, highlights the growing need for an efficient hotel booking management system (or process), also known in the youth and amateur sports world as “event housing management”.
The Need for Efficient Event Housing Management
As more Americans travel for youth and amateur sporting events (and other types of events as well), housing companies and event producers must identify ways to streamline and simplify their event housing management processes. Coordinating accommodations can quickly become overwhelming with tasks like managing hotel blocks, tracking team details, and accessing real-time analytics.
Exploring Hotel Booking Software
The right hotel booking software can centralize all housing management tasks, simplifying the process and improving efficiency. This blog post covers what a hotel booking software system is, why modern housing companies are embracing technology and the impacts to your bottom line.
What is Hotel Booking Software?
Hotel booking software brings the entire event housing process under one roof. With a best-of-breed, all-in-one software platform, a user can manage hotel RFPs, create booking sites in minutes, monitor pickup in real time, and much more.
Who Uses Hotel Booking Software?
Everyone. Whether you’re an event producer interested in making it easy for your away teams to find accommodations, a sports housing company tasked to manage teams and their room blocks, or parents booking rooms for the event, hotel booking software is required to bring all of it together.
Before we dive into what a well-oiled hotel booking software platform should have, let’s first examine how things were traditionally done before top housing companies began harnessing the power of technology to boost efficiency and generate more housing revenue.
Out with the Old, In with the New
Before the advent of hotel booking or “event housing” technology, many housing processes and procedures were manual, disjointed and a bit of a headache. As we outlined in a previous blog post, there are five key components of event housing management: hotel selection and negotiation, team block management, booking, attendee support and post-event analysis, reporting and accounting.
Before hotel booking software, sports housing companies would be tasked with managing these key components in an old-fashioned, obsolete manner. Housing companies were used to fragmented processes like managing spreadsheets, playing phone tag with hotel sales departments, and overall, the risk of losing sight of the entire event lifecycle. But there’s a better way with technology.
Why Sports Housing Companies Are Using Hotel Booking Software
In a nutshell, best-in-class hotel booking software platforms will help sports housing companies stay organized, get a better grasp on the overall health of the events they manage, provide better booking experiences for event attendees, and easily understand the revenue they are generating from events.
Here’s a more comprehensive list of what housing companies ought to look for in a hotel booking platform:
- An intuitive system requiring little training and zero coding (or technical acumen around software programming)
- A clean and user-friendly booking site for guests
- A single app to manage all event aspects
- Additional revenue opportunities
- Dashboards and reporting
- Hotel-friendly processes. Simple for hotels to access and update reservations for the event
- Self-serve reservation modifications and cancellations
- Front-to-back, full RFP management
Now that we have the basics, let’s dive a little deeper into the ideal set of features of a hotel booking software platform.
Eight Features to Look For in Hotel Booking Software
As you compare your options, it’s important to look for these eight key features when choosing a hotel booking software platform or provider.
1. Multiple RFP Functionality: The ability to create multiple RFPs and all contracted blocks will flow into one booking site for reservations in one event, allowing for greater flexibility in sourcing.2. Customizable Contract Templates: This makes the contracting process a breeze.
3. White Label Booking Sites: White labeling offers affordability and simplicity for each booking site through a user-friendly interface.
4. Multi-Hotel Team Block Holds: A travel manager will have a continuous booking experience and a team can reserve multiple hotels within one team block, providing a unified consumer experience when holding rooms for teams.
5. Hotel User Portal: Gives the hotel access to multiple room blocks at multiple hotels. They can see all their items in one place across hotels, RFPs and contracted blocks.
6. Event Producer Portal: Visibility for your event producers/organizers around event performance.
7. Travel Arranger Portal: Travel arrangers can manage multiple room blocks for multiple teams through one central location.
8. Single Traveler Portal: Each coach or parent can manage all their reservations through one central location.
Did you know? EventPipe’s hotel booking software platform helps you accomplish all of the above, plus more. Here’s what sets EventPipe apart from the rest:
- Our passion for our customers’ success, creating solutions for their pain points throughout the event housing management process. This includes:
- Dedicated support and account management.
- A nimble product team focused on customer needs while adapting to the ever-changing dynamics of the sports tourism industry.
- Robust software with all the functionality needed to effectively execute the event housing management process.
- As a technology company, we serve others who support event housing management.
EventPipe is the fastest-growing hotel booking software platform on the market. We’re a startup company dedicated to putting customers first and delivering solutions that help them grow their businesses. Our team is led by a group of software operators, who have 10+ years of prior experience at various software companies who made successful exits.
Want to learn more? Schedule a chat with our team today.
The Bottom Line: Technology is the Way
In conclusion, it’s time for sports housing companies to convert from outdated, manual processes to a technological approach with hotel booking (or event housing) software. This transition will revolutionize how housing companies manage and monetize their hotel bookings.
By centralizing the entire event lifecycle under one platform, tasks are streamlined, attendee experiences are enhanced, and more housing revenue may be generated. As a lifelong hockey player who spent my early years traveling to many tournaments, I’m sure my parents would have appreciated a more seamless hotel booking experience than what was available back then!
From RFP management and customized booking sites to pickup reports and analytics, adopting a technological approach is the way to go. EventPipe’s hotel booking software platform is a rising star in the world of event housing management.
Want to chat and learn more? Schedule a demo with our team today and learn how you can take control of your event housing management with a modern, all-in-one housing software platform.
Ready to level up your event housing management in 2024?
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