MICE - Creating Blocks (for Events or Group Bookings)

Quite often, along with the event, you provide accommodation for the attendees as well. Since, usually, this is a large group of people taking longer to arrange, confirmation about exactly how many rooms will be needed is not immediate.

Through the Blocks section in the Main event page, you are able to create hotel room blocks, which depending on theirs or the Events` status, may or may not affect and reduce room availability.

Furthermore, you are able to attach rate to the room blocks, in order to generate a full price offer and attach a code allowing organizers/guests to book a room themselves from the block through the BookDirect (WRS).

Creating a Block

To create a block press the green ‘Edit’ button in the ‘Blocks’ section on the Event page. 

You will be redirected to the Block table screen, from where you can create the blocks:

You can set a block for a Room type in two ways:

• for the whole event period by clicking on the blue icon (1) next to the Room type name.
• you can set different values for the same Room type for different dates, by clicking each cell individually (2) and entering the how many rooms to block for that specific date.

Technically, this is all you need to create a block. Simply click save and as long as the status of the block is 'Active', the respective number of rooms will be taken out of availability and reserved for this event.

You can see the blocks for each room type indicated in the Occupancy Forecast.

Rates in the Block

Apart from just creating a block and eventually converting it to a booking, the Block module also provides some more advanced features. You can set them up by pressing the 'pencil' icon under the 'Rate / Name (code)' (4) column for the respective room type. You will see the following window opening up:

• Status (1) - you can change the status of the block to be 'Optional' or 'Cancelled'.

• Name (2) - you can enter a name for the block. Used for internal information purposes only.
• Code (3) - enter a code for the block. You can provide this code to the organizer/guests and they can use it to create booking from the block themselves through the BookDirect (WRS). Read more HERE.

• Rate (4) - select a rate allocated to the block. By selecting a rate in a block you will:
  • enable organizers/guests to book from blocks themselves on the BookDirect (WRS) in combination with the code (3)
  • have a forecast of expected revenue in the Occupancy/Revenue Forecast and Pace report.
  • be able to generate an offer that includes pricing of the rooms
  • save time when manually converting blocks to bookings as this information will be automatically transferred to the booking.
• Manual price (5) -  if you've agreed a specific price for the block which you do not have in the rate, you can apply a manual price which will be the one used instead of the price of the selected rate.
• Adults/Children per room (6) - enter for how many adults + children this room type and rate combination applies.  

Additional Blocks for the same room type

Often, you may need to have two blocks for the same room type. For example, the organizer may want an offer/block for several DBL rooms at a price/rate for 2 PAX and several more at a price/rate for 1 PAX, This would mean that you need to add an additional block for the DBL with the pricing/rate/code for 1 PAX. In order to add it, simply click on the '+Block' button on the bottom of the table and proceed to add the block.

Now you know how to create blocks, apply rates and codes and more. Please make sure you also read MICE - Converting Blocks to Bookings to learn how you can convert blocks to bookings and how guest can book themselves and a further reading - MICE - Event documents, to see how block information is represented in event documents (both internal and guest-facing).