Finding Housing Solutions
Online, In-House & Other Options For Managing Sports Event Lodging
Taking part in events and tournaments is always about more than just the game. If the game is far away, someone has to consider how to get the team there and where everyone will stay. If the tournament is at home, someone has to work out the details on where the visiting players, coaches, parents and friends will stay. One of the simplest ways to handle housing is with a professional travel/housing company or a convention and visitors bureau (CVB) that offers housing services. Professionals who deal with travel and lodging every day know the ins and outs of negotiating and often have direct contacts in the city in question. Dennis Blackmore, tournament director for Beach FC, a soccer club in Virginia Beach, Va., learned long ago that he didn’t have the expertise to find lodging for his club’s three annual events. “I’ve used Book My Group for nine years, and I’m very happy,” he said. “With all I have to do, it’s paramount that I not have to worry about hotels. My rep at Book My Group, Andrea Casperson, deals with hotels every day, and she knows how to get things done.”
Book My Group was founded more than 20 years ago and has grown to about $30 million in travel and lodging, said Terry O’Leary, president. “We do all kinds of travel; with sports, we work with colleges, amateur athletics and a lot of soccer tournaments, acting as the housing bureau for these groups. We have relationships with all the major hotel brands, and we use our volume to negotiate the best rates.”
For a tournament, Book My Group will either create a special sub site on its website or establish a link from the tournament website. “People register online, but then we follow up to confirm details,” O’Leary said. “Having a website is terrific, but having a real person is important when people are checking into hotels on the weekend or if there’s any problem. That only serves to create a better relationship with the client and the hotel.”
Working with Anthony Travel has made Philip Godfrey’s job as president/CEO of the National Senior Games Association (NSGA) easier, he said, adding that the 2007 biannual games in Louisville, Ky., drew more than 12,000 athletes and 24,000 guests for the 16-day event. “Working with professionals takes a big load off our small staff. They negotiate rates, book room blocks, and all our athletes have to do is click through the website or call an 800-number. Anthony Travel’s on-site presence at our games is also great, and it’s good to have professionals who can assist if there are any problems with travel or lodging.”
Tricia Gorgas, senior event coordinator for the housing department at Anthony Travel, said Anthony Travel works with its event partners to drive individuals to its custom websites. “We create custom websites for every event, with the event logo, destination information plus housing information. It’s all very transparent. We make it clear that we are the official travel partner for the event.”
Another way to coordinate event lodging is to turn everything over to the local convention and visitors bureau or sports authority. The Greater Green Bay (Wis.) CVB developed its own online housing program in 2005, and it continues to work well for everyone, said Joel Everts, sports sales manager. “We’ve used it for runs like the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon and for softball tournaments; our largest group had nearly 1,000 rooms, and the system worked fine.”
The local aspect is important, Everts said. “We’re partner-based, so we’re dealing with properties we know well.”
Roland Schmidt, a licensed athletic trainer and coordinator for the Bellin Health Football Combine and the Bellin Run, a 10K race in Green Bay, agreed. “The CVB staff works with hotels on many different events each year, not just sports, so they have the contacts and know the hotels. The CVB staff makes it easy by doing the legwork for us.”
Schmidt said that the reports he gets from the CVB after the event are another bonus. “We can go to the hotels and say, ‘We booked 75 room nights with you last year,’ and ask for a break on our banquet this year. That information gives us leverage.”
Reports generated by online registrations or through housing agencies are also useful when it comes to pleasing sponsors. “We’ve always given our host hotels a sponsorship trade-out, but we never knew the true value. Now we do, and it’s great for our marketing purposes.”
Jennifer Jolis, director of meetings and conventions for the Fairbanks (Alaska) CVB, said her organization deals directly with hotels and planners. “We talk with the planners and find out what they need, and then we get with the hotels. We create an accommodations spreadsheet for each event with dates, names of hotels, costs, and comments such as hotel amenities or any restrictions. We send that spreadsheet to the planners, and they choose the facility.”
The Fairbanks CVB has purchased an online software program called Housing Plus, which has been used for an event with nearly 3,500 attendees. “When someone makes a reservation, we’re notified,” Jolis said. “We download data every 24 hours, and if we don’t get a firm confirmation from the hotel that the reservation has been received within a certain time, then we follow up with a call to the hotel.”
Jolis said the CVB would use Housing Plus for large sporting events in the future. But Jamal Brown, sports and meeting manager for the Fairbanks CVB, said the other method also works well. “We hosted an NCAA rifle championship last year with about 65 participants from 10 schools, and we just hosted a state track championship; the accommodations spreadsheet worked great for both events. It’s a nice one-stop shop for the planners.”
In Colorado, Mary Mankamyer, tournament director for the Pikes Peak Invitational Soccer Tournament, said she spent years trying different ways to handle housing. “We looked at housing bureaus and we have a very close relationship with the Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak CVB, but it occurred to us that if we could develop our own in-house system, we would make more money. We’re a small nonprofit, and every dollar matters.”
Working with Tourney Central, an Ohio-based company, Mankamyer and her team created a Web-based program that takes care of every tournament need, including housing. “As is common around the country with other events, teams are required to stay at one of our contracted hotels,” she said. “Also, if we were to just post a list of hotels (rather than just our contracted hotels), there could be the assumption that those properties are appropriate. Without a filtering device like that in place, people could end up staying someplace that’s not suitable for kids.”
When a team applies to play in the tournament, Mankamyer receives all of the team’s information. “I assign the team an ID number, and the planner can go to our housing site and make reservations with that number,” she said. The program automatically deducts those rooms from the total inventory the hotel has blocked for the event. “Our housing manager lets the person and the hotel know the reservation is confirmed. On our closeout day, once we are certain that everything is correct, we’re done. The teams have their hotel contact name and number, and we don’t have to worry about it. It cuts us out of the middle.”
Mankamyer has used the online system for the Pikes Peak Invitational Soccer Tournament for three years. “It seems to be working well for us,” she said. “Our teams like it, too, so everyone is happy.”