SMERF: social, military, educational, religious and fraternal groups

The Swiss Hotel Management School describes SMERF groups as gathering around shared interests, values or missions rather than business meetings. Its examples, beside the kind a hotel in India sees:

• Social: weddings, family reunions and alumni gatherings. In India: a wedding's guests, a family's reunion, a college batch meeting again after 25 years.
• Military: veterans' associations, the functions of serving units, and gatherings linked to government. In India: a regiment's reunion, a course's meet, retired officers' associations.
• Educational: academic conferences, school trips, university meetings and training seminars. In India: a school's annual trip, a college team at an inter-college tournament, a coaching institute's camp.
• Religious: retreats, faith conventions and mission groups. In India: pilgrim groups on a yatra, a satsang, a congregation's retreat.
• Fraternal: fraternities and sororities, civic organisations and membership societies. In India: service clubs, professional bodies and community associations holding their yearly meet.

Marriott Bonvoy Events, writing for planners, calls SMERF a key audience whose groups often have planning needs and budgets of their own.

• On their own calendar. The Swiss Hotel Management School notes that they plan around their mission or their members' availability rather than the peak travel seasons.
• Carefully on price. They look for value for many people: group rates, packages with meals and a hall, and clear prices with nothing added later.
• Through a planner or a volunteer. The school notes that many rely on planners, professional or volunteer, to handle logistics, contracts and the event itself, and a committee may need to agree before anyone signs.
• Paid by many people. Each guest may pay for their own room, or the association collects and pays one bill: agree which before the contract.
• With needs of their own: large room blocks, rooms close together, step-free access, simple meals at fixed times, and flexible check-in and check-out, as the school lists them.
• Again and again. A reunion, a conference or a pilgrimage held every year comes back to a hotel that looked after it.

• They fill quiet periods. The Swiss Hotel Management School gives a religious conference in February and an educational seminar in September as examples of groups that book on their own calendar.
• They keep coming when company travel falls: the school notes that gatherings driven by a mission tend to continue in a downturn.
• They bring rooms, halls and meals together, and many come back the next year.
• An independent hotel can win them on care rather than on a chain's name: a named person, a flexible package, a warm welcome.

The risk is the other side of their price. A SMERF group on a night you would otherwise sell at full price pushes those guests out, so price each group by its nights.

• Offer a package per person: the room on twin or triple sharing, meals, the hall and tea, at one clear price. The school suggests bundled packages with transparent pricing, and extras such as breakfast, wifi or transport.
• Give your lowest prices for the nights you would otherwise leave empty, and say which dates they apply to.
• Ask for a deposit when the contract is signed, even from a small association, and the rest by a set date before arrival.
• Agree who pays: each guest at check-out, or the organiser on one bill, and who pays for rooms that go unused.
• Set a cut-off date for names, and an attrition clause for a block that falls short, written in plain words a volunteer can follow.
• Agree any free rooms for the organiser or the group's leader, and for how many paid rooms.

The same reunion on a sold-out weekend in May would have pushed out guests paying more, and would need a higher price or other dates.

• Wedding planners and families in the cities your guests come from, for the social groups.
• Schools, colleges and coaching institutes planning trips, and the sports bodies that hold tournaments in your town.
• Temples, gurdwaras, churches, mosques and ashrams near you, and the operators who run pilgrim tours through your town.
• Alumni associations, regimental and veterans' associations, clubs and professional societies that hold a yearly meet.
• Your own past guests: a family that held a wedding with you has reunions and birthdays to hold.
• Your website: say you host groups, with a package and a named person. The Swiss Hotel Management School suggests partnerships with local organisations and one dedicated point of contact for planners.