Get Your RFPs Out Now!

The pandemic has resulted in a high volume of RFPs for multiple services. The number of RFPs hotels receive on a daily basis is staggering. It is best to ensure that your arrival pattern, dates, and weeks are flexible in order to overcome this challenge. Finding a hotel that meets your needs can be challenging if you aren't flexible. Stakeholders are unaware of this situation, which is also a challenge. The importance of education cannot be overstated. If you want to find the best hotel for your events in 2023-2026, put out your RFPs now.

Here are some tips on how to deal with the current environment:

• If possible, send out all RFPs for 2023-2026 now
• Be aware that proposals can take forty-eight hours to seven days to respond
• Hotels are likely to have multiple groups looking at 2023 and 2024 dates now
• Right now, hotels are unlikely to hold your meeting space & guest rooms for your 2023 dates
• As soon as the RFP is out, try to sign the contract within 30 days
• After the RFP is out, plan to site the hotel within 1-2 weeks
• Since your dates are in high demand, your concessions will be different from previous years

The key to finding a great "home" for your event is to be transparent, honest, and patent with your Hotel Sales Professional.

In addition, hotels continue to struggle with limited staffing. This should be considered when contracting as well. A contract should be black/white and clearly define solutions. The hotel sales team strives to return responses on time, but volume levels make it difficult. It is more important than ever for the industry to practice patience. To ensure a smooth transition from contracting to planning, Meetings Made Easy educates our clients and their stakeholders as much as possible. Every company should understand that the industry is going through a challenging time, but we will make it better than ever. Everyone will benefit as long as patience and education are practiced.