Net Gazette Newsletter

The Official Publication of the Big South Qualifier

HOTEL REGISTRATION OPENS AT 10AM EDT ON NOVEMBER 19, 2008!!

Have your travel season all planned out? Then you, your travel agent or your team travel coordinator can make hotel reservations for Big South in one of our approved hotels beginning November 19.

As part of the tournament entry process this year, each team in the tournament needs to make housing reservations at a Big South approved hotel. (For walking distance hotels, the team minimum is 4 rooms for 3 nights each or 12 room nights; for outlying hotels, the minimum is 4 rooms for 2 nights each or 8 room nights.) We call this Stay and Play.

Your benefits from Stay and Play:

• LOWEST GROUP RATES GUARANTEED at each approved hotel for Big South weekends
  • If you get a quote from one of our approved hotels for a lower group rate than we are advertising, call us immediately - the hotels on our approved list guarantee Big South' attendees will have the lowest group rates for those dates.
    • Excludes rates corporate negotiated rates for single rooms, such as employee rates, AARP rates, AAA rates and government rates.

• MORE HOTELS TO CHOOSE FROM and MORE ROOMS at each approved hotel.
  • If you want to use a hotel not currently on our approved hotel list, call us (888-536-8326). We will make every effort to contract the rooms you want where you want at a rate as good as or better than you can get on your own, subject to availability.

• MORE PRICE POINTS
  • Our approved hotels offer a wide variety of price points for rooms (from $69/night) for AAA 3 Star or better properties. Be assured of the quality of the hotels your teams stay in.

• RATE INTEGRITY CHECKS on a regular basis
  • If an approved hotel lowers its prices for one group, everyone will get the same benefit.

• USE YOUR OWN TRAVEL AGENT.
  • We have a travel agent program for any travel agent with a valid IATA number who books rooms through us.

• REWARDS PROGRAM for teams accounting for more than a certain minimum number of room nights.
  • Parents booking single rooms through us will be able to give teams "credit" towards their team's rewards program for those reservations.

• ENHANCED RESERVATIONS PROCESS
  • A new web site that allows you to "drag and drop" rosters into rooming lists without addition data entry
  • Immediate confirmation of rooms
  • No immediate cash outlay or credit card charges for rooms
  • Guaranteed most favorable rates already negotiated for you

We adopted Stay and Play for several reasons. Primarily, we adopted it so we can prove hotel nights generated by Big South to the city of Atlanta and maintain our place and space on the convention center calendar. Rooms used at hotels outside our list of approved hotels are not recognized by the city as being generated by Big South. As competition for convention center space becomes more and more fierce, we cannot stay on the schedule for the amount of space and the time frame we need without showing more hotel room nights.

• As TOURNAMENT OPERATORS WHO ARE ALSO CLUB DIRECTORS, we work hard to get teams the best deal we can.
  • We know the pressures you face from your players and parents because we face the same from ours.
  • We insist on LOWER RATES than hotels would otherwise offer. If a hotel quote is too high, we reject the offer. This helps everyone in the long run, not just one team or one club.

The popular wisdom is that rates are cheaper at hotels "outside the block" because hotels inside the block just raise rates to cover a commission to the event. This, again, is not accurate. Our approved hotels offer the GUARANTEED LOWEST GROUP RATES and pay commission because we assure them we will sell their rooms. Hotels have one vested interest in selling around the block - it allows them to capitalize on the work Big South does to bring customers to the city, to keep all the money they collect from teams and to raise rates to cover a commission when and if they pay commission to a travel agent. Hotels that sell around blocks do NOT put money back into your pocket. But hotels also have another vested interest in putting "heads in beds." We use this interest to negotiate the best rate you as a team can get.

Compare rates at major hotels in other cities the size of Atlanta to those in Atlanta if you think using Big South' approved hotels raises rates. Call our approved hotels and try to book a group of rooms for the dates of the tournament without mentioning Big South or the group rate and see what you would pay.

We will publish more details about the process of registering for Big South approved hotels on our web site and in the newsletter in the near future.

SPECIAL SITUATIONS

If you have one of these situations, call us Toll free at 888-536-8326 and ask for Kelli for more information on how we can help:

• You already signed a contract with an Atlanta hotel for Big South 2009.
• You want to use a hotel not currently on our list of approved hotels
• You want to use your own travel agent to book rooms
• You are a local team not using any hotel rooms