Group booking: how to quote, contract and run a block of rooms
A group booking is many rooms on the same nights for one party, such as a wedding, a conference, a tour or a school trip, under one contract with one organiser. The hotel holds a block of rooms at a group rate until a cut-off date, the organiser sends the guests' names on a rooming list, and the contract says what is owed if the group shrinks or cancels. Each hotel decides how many rooms make a group, and says so in its quotes.
Also called: group reservation, room block, group rate, group contract, rooming list, attrition, block booking.
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What makes a booking a group
The smallest group under the IH&RA and UFTAA code of practice between hotels and travel agents: at least 15 people arriving and leaving together, whom the hotel and the agent treat as one. If a confirmed group falls below 15, the code has the hotel tell the agent whether it still counts it as a group.
Many hotels count a group in rooms rather than people. Whichever you use, put it in your quotes, so an organiser knows when the group rate applies.
- Weddings and family functions, with rooms for the families and their guests, halls and food.
- Conferences, meetings and company trips, often on weekdays: the MICE business.
- Tour groups on a set itinerary, brought by a tour operator or a destination management company.
- Schools, colleges, sports teams, pilgrims and clubs: the social, military, educational, religious and fraternal groups hotels call SMERF.
How a group booking works, step by step
- 1The enquiry: the dates, the rooms needed each night, the room types, meals, halls and the budget.
- 2Check the nights: what you would sell those rooms for without the group. A group on a night you would sell out anyway costs you the guests it pushes out.
- 3The quote: the group rate per room per night, what is included, any halls and meals, any free rooms, and the date until which you hold the offer.
- 4The contract and the deposit: the block by night and type, the cut-off date, the cancellation and attrition terms, and the payment dates. Hold the rooms only once it is signed and the deposit is paid.
- 5The rooming list: each guest's name and room, by an agreed day before arrival. The IH&RA and UFTAA code asks for it at least 7 days before arrival when nothing else is agreed.
- 6The cut-off date: rooms in the block still without names come back to you.
- 7The stay: one bill to the organiser for what the contract covers, while each guest pays their own extras, as agreed.
What to put in the contract
- The block: rooms by type for each night, including the nights before and after for early arrivals.
- The group rate, per room or per person, with what it includes and whether tax is in it.
- The cut-off date, and whether the group rate applies to bookings after it.
- Attrition: how far the rooms booked may fall below the block before the group pays for the gap, and at what rate.
- Cancellation: what is owed if part or all of the group cancels, by how many days before arrival.
- Free rooms: how many paid rooms earn one free, and for whom (the organiser, the tour leader, the driver).
- Deposits and payment: how much, by when, and who pays the final bill.
- Halls and meals: the times, the menus, the day final numbers are due, and the least you charge for.
- When the rooming list is due, and how it is sent.
The IH&RA and UFTAA code adds two rules worth borrowing. A group's confirmation gives the same services to every member, with one invoice for the total. And an agent should not confirm the same group at several hotels meaning to cancel all but one later; if it does, the hotel may cancel the booking and keep any reservation fee paid.
When a group shrinks or cancels
The IH&RA and UFTAA code's rule for a group booked through a travel agent, when the contract says nothing else: the whole group may be cancelled without charge up to 30 days before arrival, up to half of it at least 21 days before, and up to a quarter at least 14 days before. After those dates the hotel may charge two thirds of the price of the services booked, at least one night for each person cancelled, or three quarters in the last 3 days, unless it sells the rooms to someone else.
When a group booked through an agent takes more than 30% of a hotel's rooms, the same code lets the hotel tell the agent in writing, between 60 and 30 days before arrival, that it means to take back any rooms the agent hasn't committed to pay for.
Marriott Bonvoy Events defines attrition as the difference between the room nights contracted and those actually booked, and tells planners that falling short usually brings a fee. Write down how yours is worked out: the share of the block the group may drop without charge, and the rate charged for the rest.
A worked example: is the group worth it?
A 50-room hotel is asked for 25 rooms on a Friday and Saturday in December for a wedding, at a group rate of ₹6,000 with breakfast. On those nights it usually sells 35 rooms at ₹8,000. With the group, it has 25 rooms left for its own guests, so it turns away 10 rooms a night: 20 room nights at ₹8,000, ₹1.6 lakh. The group brings 50 room nights at ₹6,000, ₹3 lakh, and a dinner for 150 at ₹1,400 a plate, ₹2.1 lakh: ₹5.1 lakh in all, against ₹1.6 lakh given up. Without the group, 15 rooms a night would have stayed empty. The same group on two quiet Sunday and Monday nights would be worth more still, and could be offered a lower rate.
That sum, what the group brings against the guests it pushes out, is what hotels call displacement.
How to win and run more groups
- Say on your website that you take groups: the rooms, the halls, a group menu, and who to call.
- Answer an enquiry the same day with a clear quote: groups ask several hotels at once.
- Price each group by its nights: lower on nights you wouldn't fill, higher or not at all on nights you would.
- Track each block's pick-up weekly: rooms named against rooms held.
- Release unbooked rooms on the cut-off date, and open them at that night's price.
- Keep each group's contract, numbers and bill together, and ask the organiser to come back next year.
