Source - Soccer America YOUTH SOCCER INSIDER 

Amateur sports team travel makes a major impact on the leisure hotel industry in the USA as teams travel to the tens of thousands of tournaments across the country each year.

f you are the contact who makes the hotel reservations for your team or club, then fortunately your challenge is simple: to satisfy the needs of every family within the varying demands of quality, location and price each has.

Just kidding, of course. In reality you have the volunteer-job-from-hell. If you and the team/parents make the decisions on hotels democratically, then it's hard to come up with a consensus that makes everyone happy. On the other hand, if you are the one who makes the decisions for the entire group, then you likely only hear the groans of complaints when things are not perfect.

If you are going to a tournament that does not have rooms pre-blocked for the teams, then here are some tips:

PICKING A HOTEL

* Location. It's is a common "first" need for many teams. However, location is overrated, unless the hotel is walking distance to venue. Once the team has to pile into cars or vans, driving 10 minutes or 25 minutes from the hotel to the venue won't affect winning or losing that day, but will likely affect the rate you pay.

Tip: Contact a hotel that is a farther distance from the venue than others, meaning it would be less likely to get calls from teams for that tournament, and make a deal with them.

* Hotel Brands. Certain hotel companies run hotels that are "brand consistent," meaning that every hotel
of that brand is the same quality and ambience. Brands like Courtyard by Marriott, Hyatt Place,
Hilton Garden Inns, and any of the luxury full-service hotels like Marriott, Hilton, Westin, etc., are like that
-- if you've seen one, you know what the rest are like. On the other hand, brands like Ramada Inn, Days
Inn, Quality Inn and Best Western can range from very nice to substandard for a team, so do your
homework.

Tip: Find a brand you like and stick with it. If you hop brands, use a AAA rating of 3 diamonds as your
minimum requirement.

NEGOTIATING RATE AND PERKS

* Hotel Demand Cycle. Like the stock market, the hotel industry goes through high and low demand cycles.
We have just entered a low demand period (due to new hotel construction and a slow economy) that will
likely last the next 12-24 months. That means many hotels need your business.

Tip: If you feel a rate quote is high, ask your sales contact to take another look at it -- it may just lower
your rate. Or use that rate and tell another hotel if they can beat it by $15, they'll get your business.

* Perks. Some things are easier for a hotel to give you than others. Something like free parking (if there is
normally a charge) seems easy, but hotels generally do not own the parking garage and that's often a
"no." An aggressive comp policy (1 comp per 10 or 15 rooms) is easier to get when hotels' occupancies are
down, and they're down now. Other things like a free meeting room for the team to congregate, free
health club passes, or even a free continental breakfast, if the brand doesn't already offer it, simply comes
down to how much the hotel wants the booking. Late checkout? Easier to get on weekends than weekdays.

Tip: Make a wish list of what you want, and you'll likely get at least some of them.

HOTEL CONTRACTS

A handshake agreement on a block of rooms is not a guarantee that your room reservations will be intact when your team arrives. You should sign a contract with each hotel you use, but you should make the necessary changes on the contract to protect you:

* Attrition. this means you will guarantee a certain number of rooms will be used, and you will pay for that,
whether you use that many or not.

Tip: Cross this part out, as it should be a deal breaker for you.

* Cancellation. To be fair to the hotel, there needs to be a deadline that you will commit to the number of
rooms you are going to use, and release the rest. You should, however, be able to cancel the entire
reservation up to a certain point.

Tip: Cross out anything over a 30-day cancellation (or less if the tournament doesn't acknowledge your
acceptance into the tournament until 14 or 21 days before arrival), and most hotels will say "OK."

* Individual Cancellation. As you get close to arrival, you may have a few families that cannot make the
trip and want to cancel their reservation.

Tip: Tell the hotel you want the right to cancel up to 25 percent or more of your total block up to a few days
before arrival, to get those late-changers off the hook.

* Roomtypes. Your team likely needs two beds per room -- called Double/Doubles in the hotel business.
Hotel contracts often call the roomtype they are giving you ROH or Run-of-House, meaning you will be
assigned any roomtype they have available when you check in. Lastly, some hotel contracts say that they
are giving you Double/Doubles, then below that it states that they cannot guarantee roomtypes.

Tip: Cross our any verbiage that is contrary to you getting the roomtypes you want. If a hotel cannot
guarantee you the roomtypes you want, use a different hotel.

Hopefully with the help of these suggestions, you'll sleep better, and won't need to take two aspirin in the
morning.

(Tom Berkman is General Manager and Owner of the THS Company, a sports housing service that works with more than 140 client tournaments and events nationwide. Tom is a '76 graduate of the Hilton School of Hotel & Restaurant Mgt. at the University of Houston, and spent 22 years in hotel and restaurant operations before starting THS in 1998. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or go to http://www.thsweb.com.)