Purpose of Preferred Venues
A GRATIS user earns their revenue from commission. Preferred venues functionality enables the GRATIS user to rank how venues are displayed to their team in a search result to ensure the most profitable venues are selected for enquiry RfP’s. Similarly, preferred venues at client level enables you to rank these venues higher than the instance ranking. MEP will reflect the same ranking as in GRATIS with the additional complication of Instant Book, Green Accredited and Promoted Venues.
How they are set up
GRATIS enables you to set preferred venues or venue groups that affect the venue search sort order for both the GRATIS users and the end client if they are searching for their own venues in myeventsportal (MEP)
There are 2 tiers that can be applied:
- Office Preferences > Preferred Venues tab > load preferred deals for the GRATIS Instance with narrative and expiry date:
- Clients > Venue Details tab. load preferred venues for the specific Client with narrative & expiry date:
There are 3 types that can be applied – by enquiry date, by arrival date and do not use. If the deals expire, they will no longer appear as preferred ie. at the top in the venue search and if they are do not use, they will still appear in the search but at the very bottom.
You can also set; in exactly the same way as venue groups; individual venues to be preferred or do not use.
How do preferred venues appear in a GRATIS search?
Search criteria was 15 theatre style, 2 bedrooms, 5 miles from centre of Birmingham:
Shaded grey with the preferred level indicated with a / then the number – Edgbaston Park Hotel is a preferred individual hotel for the client, MacDonald & Novotel are placed 2 and 3 as they are preferred client venue groups and there is no Village hotel in the location searched.
Shaded green with the preferred level indicated with the number in brackets – Novotel is appearing based on the client preferred and Leonardo & Malmaison are placed 4 and 5.
Thereafter the venues are shaded grey and without a number and are sorted as optimised full listing, basic listing and do not use venues – see 2nd screenshot below displaying the Best Western Plough & Harrow which is a client do not use venue shaded red.
How do preferred venues appear in an MEP search?
Search criteria was 15 theatre style, 2 bedrooms, 5 miles from centre of Birmingham without Instant Book venues only ticked:
I will leave the IT team to discuss how these results are currently appearing.
Search criteria was 15 theatre style, 2 bedrooms, 5 miles from centre of Birmingham with Instant Book venues only ticked:
Lost functionality in redesigned MEP
Client > Venue Details tab > Preferred Client Portal Venue Options:
There was the ability for the user to label an icon (Preferred Venue or Approved Venue) that would appear adjacent to a client preferred venue in the search results:
How can I find out which clients have a venue as preferred?
Venue Listing > General tab > Preferred by Clients displayed at the bottom.
Reporting Preferred Venues
To see the business that these venues have completed please run the Operated Enhanced report selecting the office preferred or client preferred venues
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