Armed Forces Reunions has been booking reunions nationwide for over thirty years now – and WE KNOW where the truly military reunion-friendly hotels are. It’s amazing that we’ve been working with many of the same hotels since the late 1980s, and in a couple cases even with the same salespeople! We’ve seen hotels grant all our wishes one year, and turn around the next under new management with policies not friendly to reunions at all. New GMs are beholden to ownership and think they can change policies and create new revenue. Often the changes have to do with hospitality room policy and allowing groups to provide their own refreshments.
Management turnover often results in scaring reunion business away – but they usually come to learn their mistakes. We often find ourselves training new management and new sales staffs on hot buttons in the military reunion market as no other company understands the needs of reunions better than AFR. The hospitality industry has one of the highest turnover ratios of any industry. Since we’ve been around so long it’s easy for us to point to multiple past bookings with the hotel or hotels in that city. We point out that reunion groups are consistent from year to year, fill hotel rooms on weekends (soft days in most cities), will adjust arrival/departure patterns to create a win/win for all parties, and above all that reunion attendees are respectful citizens that any hotel should love to have in-house.
Often times, this process can be the most time consuming and stressful for your group’s planner. What typically happens is they reach out to your chosen cities’ Convention Bureau, at which point they distribute your request to many hotels in the area. Now you end up with 5-10 hotel proposals, you may choose the lowest rate or the most appealing location, but do you really know how accommodating this hotel will be for your groups’ individual needs? Then when you move to contracting with your chosen hotel, the real fun and stress begins. Hotel contracts are filled with intimidating performance clauses, extra fees for everything under the sun, and language that you may have not even seen before. The worst thing that can happen to a group is being financially penalized because you didn’t meet room or meal requirements from the hotel.
There’s no reason to stress yourself out over this or waste your time reviewing countless proposals from hotels that will never meet your needs – AFR can direct you to THE most reunion-friendly hotel from our partner network in whatever city your group choses to visit – FOR FREE. Think of us as The National Reunion Bureau.
See AFR’s Top Reunion Destinations and get started on hotel proposals today!
Charley Dey
757-625-6401