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Book Hotel Rooms Directly with Accelevents

Set up hotel room blocks, manage availability, and give attendees a seamless way to book their stay.

Written by Ariane Ramirez

Reserve Hotel Rooms After Purchasing Tickets

The Housing feature lets you manage your event's room blocks inside Accelevents instead of sending attendees off to a third-party site. You add your hotels and room types, set nightly rates and availability, then publish a booking page that registered attendees use to reserve their stay. Bookings flow back into your admin console, where you can edit, cancel, or export them.

How Does It Work?

You add the hotel information, the available rooms per hotel and design the booking page. When attendees purchase a ticket, you can include the hotel booking link in the order confirmation email, or send them a different email to remind them to book the hotel. Attendees select the room and the booking will added to Accelevents. You will coordinate with the hotel to add the bookings in Accelevents to their system. The hotel will provide you with their confirmation number which you will provide to your attendees as their reference when they check in to the hotel.

Enable the Housing Feature

  • Go to Housing in your admin console

  • Click Enable Housing

Set the Booking Window & Publish the Booking Page

The booking window is the start and end dates of when attendees can reserve rooms. Go to Housing > Settings and enter the book open and close dates and times.

💡 We recommend that you publish your page even before you add your hotel rooms so you can check how the live page would look as you set up.

Access the Booking Page

In Housing > Settings, click Open Booking Page at the top of the page to access it in a new tab.

If you published the page, you'll see the option to choose the dates and check the availability. When you submit, it won't show any available hotels or rooms yet; you'll need to add them in the next step. If you didn't publish, you'll see a "Room booking is not available" message.

Published

Unpublished

Add Hotels

  • Go to Housing > Hotels

  • Click Add Hotel

  • Enter the Hotel Details

  • Click Save

Hotel Details

Basic Details

  • Hotel name

  • Address

  • Phone

  • Distance from venue

Stay

  • Check-in time - this will show at the bottom of the booking page

  • Check-out time - this will show at the bottom of the booking page

  • Available from (date)

  • Available to (date)

Note: Attendees can only book nights within this availability window. These dates will not show anywhere in the booking page, but the dates will have a dot below them.

Booking Page

The information you enter will show when an attendee clicks the View Rooms button from the hotel list

  • Images - The first image is the one attendees see in the hotel list. All images will show on the booking page. JPG or PNG. At least 800 x 533px, ratio 3:2. Up to 20 images.

  • Description

  • Amenities

  • Terms

  • Policy - this will be at the bottom of the page

  • Checkout disclaimer

Publish the Hotel

To make your hotel visible on the booking page, you'll need to publish it after completing all the hotel details.

  • Go to Housing > Hotels

  • Click the 3-dot menu on the hotel

  • Select Publish hotel

Add Room Types

After saving the hotel, you can click Add room type. You can also click on the hotel, or click the 3-dot menu and select Manage Hotels to bring you to the page where you can add room types for that hotel.

  • Click + Add Room Types from the Room Types page

  • Enter the Room details

  • Click Add or Save & Add another when you're done

Room Details

  • Room type name

  • Total room nights

  • Max occupancy

  • Room size

  • Bed configuration

  • Images - The first image is the one attendees see in the room type list. JPG or PNG. At least 600 x 400px, ratio 3:2. Up to 20 images.

  • Description

  • Amenities

  • Publish this room type

Publish the Room

In the Room Type settings, the toggle for "Publish this room type" is enabled by default. You can leave it as published, but the room type will not appear yet in the booking page unless you add the room rate and availability. You can also publish/unpublish directly from the Room Type list.

Select The Ticket Types Can Book Hotels or Room Types

This feature is coming soon, stay tuned for updates!

By default anyone who has a ticket can book any hotel and any room as long as it's available. If you want to add restrictions, you can add a Logic in the Hotel settings.

  • Go to Housing > Hotels

  • Click the 3 dot menu on the hotel

  • Select Edit Hotel

  • Go to the Logic tab

  • Click + Add Logic

Hotel Logic

When creating a logic rules, there's always a trigger and an action. The trigger is the IF part of the settings, and the THEN part is the action.

The trigger is the condition that must be met so that the action will be done. In hotel logic, the trigger will always depend on the ticket type or add on that the attendee has.

The action can be to show or hide a specific hotel or room type, restrict their check in or check out date, or limit their stay duration.

Trigger

Action

You can create a number combinations, here are some examples:

  • If the selected ticket is General Admission, show Hotel A, show only the Deluxe Room and Hide Hotel B

  • If the selected ticket is VIP, show Hotel B, show only the Executive Suite and hide Hotel A

  • If the selected ticket is not Staff Ticket, check in date can only be 1 day before the event starts

In this example below, we want everyone who has a VIP ticket to book only the Executive Grand Suite in Hyatt.

Trigger: IF Settings

In the IF settings, Selected Ticket /Add-on is the default trigger, then we added 1 condition: is Any of the indicated ticket(s), which is the VIP ticket.

This means if the attendee has a VIP ticket, it will trigger the action below.

Action: THEN Settings

For the action in the THEN settings, we added 2 actions to Show this hotel and the Executive Grand Suite.

But this action does not hide the other rooms in the hotel, so we add another action to Hide the Deluxe 1 King Bed room.

If you have multiple hotels, but you want them to stay only in this hotel, you'll need to create a logic in the other hotels to hide it if they have a VIP ticket.

Set Rates & Availability

In Housing > Rate & Availability, you'll see the available room night dates you entered in the hotel settings. Click on a date to set the room rate and how many rooms are available for that night. You can choose to apply this setting to this night only, event nights, weekends only, or all nights. Click Save when you're done.

Add Tax to the Room Rate

This is optional; you can add a tax percentage on top of the room rate. Go to Housing > Settings and set the tax percentage under Taxes.

When attendees book a room, the tax will be included in the total price when they see the list of rooms, and it will show the breakdown on checkout.

Customize the Hotel Reservation Email and Confirmation Page

Go to the Booking Confirmations section in Housing > Settings to customize the email and page they see after they reserve their hotel. Click Edit Page; this will redirect to Registrations > Confirmation & Reminders where you can customize the email and page.

Add the Hotel Booking Link to Emails and Pages

If you want attendees to book their hotel right after they register for the event, you can add the hotel booking link to the order confirmation email and page. You can also include the link in the reminder emails you send them. Head to the Share the Booking Link section in Housing > Settings to edit those emails and pages. The link is on top of that page.

Design Your Hotel Booking Page

This feature is coming soon, stay tuned for updates!

To customize the look of your booking page, go to Housing > Settings and click Edit Page. This will open the advanced page builder where you can design your page.

Access the Booking Link

When accessing the booking link, the displayed information will depend on the following:

1. Logged in

If they're already logged in when they access the page, they can start selecting the dates and check the availability.

2. Not Logged In

If they are not logged in, they'll need to enter their email address and click continue. They should receive an email with a link that automatically signs them in.

The link in this email expires after it's been used once, they can request for a new email from the page or click the link to resend the magic link.

3. Has No Ticket

If they enter an email address that does not have a ticket for the event, they will get a "no registration" message.

4. Has Existing Room Reservation

If they access the link while logged in and they already have a room reservation, they will see their reservation details and a button to go to My Registrations.

Reserve a Room

Select the dates

The available room nights will have dots at the bottom of the date.

Select the hotel

Select the room type

Confirm the booking

Additional requests can be added here. At this point, no payment will be collected for the reservation.

Confirmation Page

Confirmation Email

The email should have the Accelevents Booking ID (e.g. RES-EBE82E7929)

Note that this is NOT the hotel confirmation number. This is only confirms that the booking is in Accelevents.

Manually Add Bookings

Instead of having the attendee make the reservation, you can add the bookings for them in Housing > Bookings.

  • Click Add Booking

  • Select the attendee

  • Enter the check in and check out dates

  • Select the hotel and room type

  • Select Send a confirmation email to the attendee if you want to notify them of the new booking

  • Click Add Booking

Manage Bookings as Admins

Admins can view, export and edit hotel reservations from Housing > Bookings.

When you click on a booking, it will open the details where you can update the check in and check out dates, hotel and room type.

When the booking is updated, the attendee will receive an email notification about the change.

Accelevents Booking ID and Hotel Confirmation Number

Note that the bookings will have a Booking ID but no Hotel Confirmation number yet. The partner hotel should provide this after they enter the booking information to their system.

  • Booking ID - this is the reference number that is generated in Accelevents when a booking has been created in Accelevents. If an attendee gives this reference number directly to the hotel, they will not be able to find anything, as the hotel has its own hotel confirmation number.

  • Hotel Confirmation Number - this is the reference number that is generated by the hotel when the booking in Accelevents is inputted in their system. This is the number that attendees need to give the hotel if they want to check their reservation directly through the hotel.

Booking Filters

The Edit Columns feature is coming soon, stay tuned for updates!

You can use the tabs at the top of the page to filter bookings by All, Confirmed, or Canceled., you can also save your own view based on the filters you add. You can also search for a booking or filter the list by Hotel, Ticket Type, or Status.

Cancel, Download PDF, Resend Email

Click the three-dot menu next to a booking to:

  • Edit the booking

  • Send confirmation email

  • Download PDF

  • Cancel booking

You can also click Export to download the booking list.

Booking Smart Views

The Edit Columns feature and Smart View are coming soon,

stay tuned for updates!

Click Edit Columns to add more columns to your view. You can also create a Smart View based on the filters you add.

View Booking Details in Attendee Management

In Attendees > Attendee Management, you can also create Smart Views that will include the booking details columns through Edit Column. You can add the booking ID, booking status, hotel, room type, check-in date, check-out date, and confirmation number to your view.

Send Bookings to Hotels

For the bookings to be inputted to the hotel's system, you'll need to provide the booking details to your partner hotel. For now you can Export the bookings and send that file to them, or send them a link to your Smart View in Attendee Management. Once the hotel adds them to their system, they should provide you with the hotel confirmation number.

Coming soon: Hotel partners may manage reservation details through a separate portal, where they can view bookings in Accelevents so that they can enter them into their own system.

Update the Hotel Confirmation Number

Once the partner hotel provides the hotel confirmation number, you can manually add them to the booking or import them through CSV upload. Click the Import Hotel Conf # button from Housing > Bookings.

The file must carry these two columns. Extra columns, and any order, are fine:

  • Reservation Code - this is the Accelevents Booking ID

  • Hotel Confirmation Number

Once saved or uploaded, the attendee will receive a notification email that includes the hotel confirmation number.

Manage Booking as Attendees

Attendees can only view their booking. If they want to make changes, they'll need to contact the event organizers to update the information.

Attendees can access their booking details when they are logged in through the booking link or through My Registrations.

Send an Engage Email To Remind Attendees to Book a Room

In Engage > Email, a template to Book your room by ${room_block_cutoff_date} is available. You can use this to remind attendees to book the room before the cut off date.

The template has a Book a Room button that will redirect to the booking page using the merge tag ${hotelReservationBookingLink}

To add other housing merge tags, you can click on a button or text object in the template, then click Merge Tags from the menu that appears on top. Select the merge tag under Housing in the pop-up.

Send Reminder Emails

This feature is coming soon, stay tuned for updates!

In Registration > Confirmation & Reminders > Reminder Emails, there is a Default Room Reservation Reminder Email template, and you can choose these as recipient lists for to send reminder emails:

  • Registrants who haven't book a room

  • Registrant who have booked a room

You can open the advanced template builder to further customize the email.

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