National Wedding Month is in full swing and HotelPlanner.com is revealing the top travel trends of today’s brides. With the majority of engagements happening over the holiday season, the New Year is the start of wedding planning for many engaged couples.
Weddings are part of a $75+ billion-dollar industry and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 2 million couples tie the knot each year. When the bride and groom or wedding planner is looking for the perfect venue and catering services for their guests, hotels play a vital role in the wedding experience.
HotelPlanner.com surveyed nearly 5,000 brides that have recently married in the last year to find out their wedding destination preferences, length of stay, type of accommodations used, group size, and other key details when booking group hotel rooms for their wedding party.
The resulting infographic can be seen below:
Most surprising in the findings is that brides are favoring secondary cities such as Austin, Minneapolis, Nashville and New Orleans to get married in as these locations offer the more affordability, provide an intimate setting plus offer interesting local attractions unique and specific to the area.
On an international scale, Europe has seen a rise in wedding bookings most predominantly within Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy in popular cities like Madrid, London and Rome. Brides looking to splurge on a destination wedding are choosing European destinations offering old world history, romance, and breathtaking scenery.
From wedding travel, the location and number of out-of-town guests are important factors for event planners when deciding on a hotel. A room block is usually 9+ rooms that a hotel puts on hold at a specially negotiated discounted rate. The hotel will usually release any unused rooms 30 days prior to arrival with no penalty to the bride and groom.
HotelPlanner.com’s service helps couples and wedding planners book the big event by providing discounted hotel rates, professional planning advice at no charge and allows wedding planners to earn rewards through the Groups Rewards Program that can be used for future hotel stays.
“From our stats, February is a big month for brides and grooms to start searching for wedding friendly hotels for that special day,” said Tim Hentschel, CEO of HotelPlanner.com. We see significant growth in wedding group travel every year at this time. The beginning of the year is the best time to plan a wedding as a lot of venues book up to a year in advance. By planning your wedding now and booking hotel rooms blocks, you give yourself the time to get all the details right and have something to look forward to, so the earlier the better.”
With a million other wedding details to tend to, HotelPlanner can take care of finding the right location at the best price for friends and family, providing the most useful, direct, and personal services to brides and grooms, connecting them with high quality professionals.
About HotelPlanner
HotelPlanner.com provides group hotel booking services to 3,000 groups per day in the global group travel market. The company’s group hotel booking service ensures the lowest rates by allowing customers to receive quotes online directly from hotel group sales managers. HotelPlanner allows customers to book hotels for business meetings, conferences, conventions, family reunions, weddings, extended stays, tours, military reunions, church events, and group travels. The company also owns and operates Meetings.com, a site that provides information, planning and booking services for group, meeting, and individual hotel stays for the corporate, associations and business to business enterprises. With a mission statement geared towards, “Bringing People Together,” HotelPlanner & Meetings.com are the global experts for hotel sourcing, providing direct clients and market leading affiliates with unmatched group and event discounted room rates plus localized service levels not available at other travel companies. Founded in 2002, the company has offices in London, England (European Headquarters), Hong Kong (Asian Headquarters), West Palm Beach, FL (USA Headquarters), and Las Vegas, Nevada.
