Page 82 - South Mississippi Living - February, 2017

ROMANCE & WEDDING oh goody
Making Guests Feel Special
Hotel blocks and welcome bags
story by Kelsey Sunderman-Foster
As the wedding date approaches, friends and family from out of town will need to begin looking for lodging options near your chosen venue. Many brides and their grooms choose to set up wedding room blocks at local hotels to accommodate their guests and to help them keep track of who has booked a room.
“I recommend having a hotel
block just to guarantee there will
be space available for guests,” said
Malcolm Underwood, director
of sales at Hilton Garden Inn
Gulfport Airport. “You never
know what the occupancy will be
Get the H.O.T look
peace of mind knowing your guests will have somewhere to stay.”
Simply put, wedding blocks
are an assortment of rooms that the hotel will set aside for your group. To book a room, many hotels will offer a group code
or group booking link to make
the process easier. This will give your guests access to the rooms you’ve chosen. More often than not, hotels will also discount the rates for these room blocks as they will help to fill the hotel in bulk. As another perk, some hotels will also offer the bride and groom a free or discounted bridal suite if a predetermined amount of rooms from the block are booked.
Though hotel blocks can be a great way to ensure your guests are getting the best prices, you’ll want to be sure to ask if they have an attrition clause. In many hotel
rooming contracts, an attrition clause will be present in order to protect the hotel in case rooms held in your block are not booked. Since these rooms are being set aside for your group, the hotel is unable to sell them to anyone else which could leave them with a
lot of vacant rooms. The attrition clause is a promise that if a certain amount of the rooms remain un- booked, the person responsible for the block will pay a percentage of the cost of the remaining rooms.
Typically, hotels will offer rooms to your guests through the group code or booking link up to a
set amount of days prior to the check-in date, such as 30 or 60 days before arrival. At this point, remaining rooms will be released back into the hotel’s inventory, and you’ll be able to get a final count of how many rooms were booked.
Once you know who will be staying at the hotel, you may choose to provide wedding welcome bags to your guests. Often times, these bags include directions to the ceremony
and reception, event start
times, snacks, and some other personalized gifts. “At our hotel, we will hand out wedding bags free of charge at our front desk
or deliver to the room based on the circumstance. We recommend dropping the wedding bags off at the front desk at least 12-24 hours before your guests are expected to arrive,” Underwood said.
Be sure to ask if your hotel provides this service!
like closer to the wedding date,
and it’s always good to have some
82 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • February 2017
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