Hotel Contract Negotiation Tips, Tricks, and Traps

Hotel Contract Negotiation Tips, Tricks, and Traps provides a unique insider's perspective on the high-stakes complexities of hotel contract negotiations.  Written from a meeting planner's point-of-view and covering topics from attrition to force majeure to walked guests, the book dissects contract provisions with easy-to-understand explanations and alternate contract language to counter hotel negotiation ploys. Based on years of real-life experience, the practical negotiation tactics described in this book could save you and your group tens of thousands of dollars on your next meeting and could protect you from being hit with even more in liquidated damages. Whether you are a meeting planner, a third party representing groups, or just someone who is looking to get a great deal for your next group meeting, this book has something for you. Don't negotiate your next hotel deal without it!

I wrote this book to equip meeting planners and representatives of groups (such as third parties and intermediaries) with the information and tools necessary to negotiate a fair and reasonable hotel contract.  Too often, the focus of a hotel contract negotiation is on "dates, rates, and space" and there's less attention paid to the contract terms and conditions.  The fine print and legalese of a hotel contract isn't nearly as interesting as booking the room block--until it comes around to bite someone (usually not the hotel).

In the book, I dissect an example hotel contract template (which has seen years of actual use for booking tens of thousands of room nights along with F&B, A/V, and other hotel services) and I explain each key provision in the contract.  For each provision that I explain, I include the excerpt of the provision from the contract, I describe the provision in detail, I describe what issues, if any, that a hotel may have with the contract language, and, where appropriate, I include alternative contract language or I describe what's a reasonably acceptable compromise.  The contract that I dissect and explain in the book can be downloaded in electronic format, free-of-charge, at the website that's described in the book.

The book is really meant to be a practical training and learning tool as well as a reference guide that you can use on a room block-by-room block basis.  I wanted to avail people with a hotel contract that I have used with much success and I wanted to make sure that they really, really understood how to negotiate the terms and conditions.  I do describe in the book about how to negotiate room rates and other concessions, but the focus of the book and the bulk of the pages are dedicated to examining a hotel contract provision-by-provision.

Over the years, I've been involved in horrible attrition situations, hotels walking numerous guests from my room block, unexpected construction during the middle of my group's meeting, deterioration in hotel quality, labor disputes--among many other things.  All of those experiences have gone into this book and the hotel contract template that is explained in the book.  Whether you're new to meeting planning or a seasoned meeting planner, I believe that you'll be able to pay for this book with your very next hotel contract negotiation by getting a better deal for your group based on what you've learned.