Why event planners prefer hotels & venues that use Social Tables

Matt Dadey has a big job. Every year, as an association Event Planner with the American Gem Society, he's responsible for planning and executing his industry's premier educational and networking event, Conclave. As it is a particularly large event with a number of moving pieces, the planning phase has always been a communications challenge.

In a typical year, Matt and his team would spend days going back and forth with host hotels, with each side submitting critical changes to the master diagram, and forwarding it to the other side via email. Not only was this slow, but it was risky. Details got lost in translation.

But this wasn't a problem in 2016 when Matt worked with Social Tables client Hyatt Regency, Arlington Virginia, Crystal City to plan the year's Conclave. "There was no more back and forth. With Social Tables, diagrams are always up to date for both sides, and everyone involved knew exactly where they stood. It cut four steps out of the process.

This wasn't just convenient, but essential. "With a growing number of millennials in the workforce, Social Tables is the right tool for this audience. The first time I ever used Social Tables, I was able to design ten rooms in about an hour.

Matt goes on to say "I have heard from some properties that they don't use Social Tables because they have to pay for it. But I worked in a hotel for three years as a sales manager, so I learned it makes sense to spend money to make money. Increases in efficiency are increases to the bottom line. This is why hotels need to get Social Tables, but more importantly, your event planner needs this tool to plan efficiently. To not offer Social Tables is a disservice to your planners and to hotels.

The data backs up Matt's claims. Social Tables recently commissioned a study with STR and discovered that hotels that use Social Tables see a ~2% increase in F&B profit per occupied room. For a hotel with 250 sleeping rooms, that's almost $50,000 more a year. Increases to efficiency with Social Tables really are increases to the bottom line.