Did you somehow get stuck with the responsibility of organizing travel for a large corporate group?
Maybe you're planning an executive retreat, corporate retreat, conference or team event, and suddenly you're responsible for figuring out flights, hotels, transportation and rooming lists for 20, 30 or even 50 people.
First of all, don't panic.
Group corporate travel has a lot of moving pieces, but having a good system can make it so much easier to manage.
I've worked with retreat travel and group travel logistics, and I've learned that the biggest thing is making sure you have all of your information organized before things start getting complicated.
Here are some of my tips for keeping large group travel organized.
1. Don't Book 30 Individual Airport Transfers
Let's start with transportation.
If you're in charge of getting everyone from the airport to the hotel or retreat venue, your first instinct might be to arrange transportation based on each person's individual arrival time.
Please don't make yourself do that.
Instead, look at everyone's flight schedules and create transportation time blocks.
For example, if your group is arriving between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM, you could potentially organize transportation into a few larger pickup windows rather than arranging a separate car for every person.
You might have:
1:00 to 2:30 PM: Airport transfer
2:30 to 4:00 PM: Airport transfer
4:00 to 5:30 PM: Airport transfer
The exact timing will depend on the destination, airport and transportation provider, but the idea is the same.
Look at the group as a whole instead of planning transportation one person at a time.
This can save money, reduce the number of vehicles you need and make your arrival logistics much easier to manage.
Once everyone is at the hotel or retreat venue, consider whether a charter bus or shuttle makes sense for the rest of the trip too.
If you have 30 people going to dinner or an off-site activity, you probably don't want to be coordinating 15 Ubers every time you leave the hotel.
2. Have One Master Document
This is probably my biggest piece of advice.
When you're coordinating a large group, information starts coming at you from everywhere.
Someone emails you their flight.
Someone else texts you their dietary restriction.
Another person changes their hotel room.
Then someone calls because they need an airport transfer.
Suddenly you're trying to remember where you put everyone's information.
Don't do that to yourself.
Create one master Google Sheet or Google Doc where you can see the important information for the entire group.
Depending on your event, this could include:
Full name
Email
Phone number
Arrival flight
Departure flight
Arrival date and time
Departure date and time
Hotel room
Roommate
Dietary restrictions
Allergies
Transportation requirements
Special requests
You don't necessarily need every piece of information on one page, but you should have one central place to go when you need to know what's happening.
When you're dealing with 30+ people, this will save you a lot of time.
3. Get Your Rooming List Organized Early
Rooming lists are another thing that can get messy very quickly.
If you're organizing a corporate retreat or conference, create your rooming list as early as possible and keep it updated as people book, cancel or make changes.
Something as simple as:
Guest | Room Type | Roommate | Check-In | Check-Out
can make a huge difference.
If you're working with a hotel or retreat centre, find out when they need the final rooming list and what their deadline is for making changes.
And don't rely on an email thread as your only record.
Keep your own updated version.
4. Collect Everyone's Flight Information in the Same Format
If you're coordinating travel for a large group, try not to let everyone send you their flight information in a different format.
Otherwise, you're going to end up with screenshots, confirmation numbers, random emails and someone saying:
"I'm on the 4:35 flight!"
And you have no idea which airline they're talking about.
Instead, have everyone submit the same information:
Airline
Flight number
Departure city
Arrival city
Departure date
Arrival date
Departure time
Arrival time
Checked baggage
Now you can quickly see when everyone is arriving and leaving.
This also makes your retreat travel or corporate travel logistics much easier to manage.
For example, if 12 people are arriving within the same two-hour window, you might be able to group them into one airport transfer instead of arranging several individual vehicles.
5. Make a Master Timeline
There are a LOT of deadlines involved in group travel.
And they're all happening at different times.
You might have:
Deposit deadline
Flight booking deadline
Hotel deadline
Final payment deadline
Rooming list deadline
Transportation deadline
Final passenger information
Final itinerary distribution
Put all of these dates somewhere you can actually see them.
I personally love a simple calendar for this because you can look ahead and immediately see what's coming up.
The worst time to realize your rooming list is due tomorrow is... tomorrow.
6. Plan for Things to Change
Here's the thing about group travel.
Something will probably change.
Someone's flight gets delayed.
Someone changes their flight.
Someone cancels.
Someone decides they want to stay an extra night.
Someone forgets to tell you they have three pieces of luggage.
It happens.
The key is having a system so one change doesn't completely throw everything else off.
Make sure you know who your main contacts are for:
Transportation
Hotel
Venue
Airline or travel provider
Event organizer
And make sure your group knows who they should contact if something goes wrong.
The more clearly defined these roles are, the easier the trip will be for everyone.
7. Think About the Entire Trip, Not Just the Flights
One of the biggest mistakes I see with group travel is thinking that booking the flights is the main job.
It's really just one part of the process.
You also need to think about:
How is everyone getting from the airport to the hotel?
Where is everyone staying?
Who is sharing a room?
How are people getting to the retreat or event each day?
What happens if someone's flight is delayed?
Who has everyone's information?
Who is communicating changes to the group?
When you're planning an executive retreat, corporate retreat or conference, these little details can make a huge difference in how smoothly everything runs.
8. Don't Try to Keep Everything in Your Head
This is really the theme of all of this.
When you're organizing travel for a large group, you don't want to be the person who has to remember everything.
You want to be the person who knows where everything is.
Your master spreadsheet has the passenger information.
Your calendar has the deadlines.
Your rooming list has the hotel details.
Your transportation schedule has the airport pickups.
Your itinerary has the overall trip information.
Once you have a system in place, group travel becomes much more manageable.
And if you're thinking, "This sounds like a lot..."
That's because it can be.
Planning travel for a large corporate group is very different from booking a vacation for a family of four.
There are more people, more moving pieces and a lot more opportunities for something to change.
That's where working with a corporate travel agent or group travel planner can make sense.
At Simply Retreats, I provide corporate travel services and retreat travel logistics for organizations, retreat hosts and groups.
I can help coordinate the travel side of your event, including flights, hotels, transportation, rooming lists and all of those little details happening behind the scenes.
Whether you're planning a corporate retreat, executive retreat, conference or another large group event, you don't have to figure it all out on your own.
You focus on the event. I'll help get your people there.