By Barbara Siqueira 

Site inspection in 90 hotels in one week, handling a fake conference website and replying to more than 900 delegate queries in the 2 months before the Congress were some of the topics discussed about housing management and strategies used for the 21st International AIDS 2016 in Durban, South Africa.

Nadine Spitteler, the Operations Manager at A111, shared this successful client case and its challenges with accommodation management strategies at the UK/Ireland Chapter Meeting during the ICCA Congress 2017 in Prague.

“It was the second time the event was held in Durban which means the negotiation was tough. We started negotiating almost two years prior and reviewed more than 55 hotel contracts carefully to ensure favourable clauses”, Nadine mentioned during her presentation.

Nadine also covered useful tips on room blocks and overall strategies as well as their effect on the conference budget. As this is a hot topic many questions began popping up, such as “Why conferences still offer accommodation management instead of leaving it to delegates to make their own arrangements?”

She explained how customer services are important to bring back and increase the number of participants, how housing services play a big role as another source of revenue stream, and the risks of not having pre-blocked rooms for a larger conference; “You can’t take the risk of leaving your participants without accommodation, especially if another large event is taking place at the same time. If you do, it could affect your registration for years to come”, Nadine said.

The attendees of the UK/Ireland Chapter Meeting walked away with significant insights into the subject matter.