Maintaining Strong Hotel Relationships for 20+ Years

Q3: How do you handle hotel bookings when an event organizer works with a third-party housing company, and do you use live rates? 

When an event organizer works with a third-party housing company, we place that booking link on the event page. Rather than showing the individual hotels, we put a link on the right side of the event page that takes users to the third-party website which shows the hotels for the event.  

For example, in November 2025, we hosted Quadballfest Seattle. When we were awarded the event, US Quadball stated that they contracted with a third-party housing company to handle their hotels. Since we had already contacted the hotels for our bid proposal, we shared the information rate with the housing partner. The housing partner finalized the details, sent us the booking link, and then we added that link to the Playeasy system so we could still track clicks and engagement. 

As for live rates, no, we don’t use them. Even after the reservation cutoff. Our hotel partners prefer working directly with us rather than moving to live rates, and that’s been the case since 2005. 

Q4: How has giving attendees an easier booking experience changed your event servicing? Have event orgs given you any feedback? 

The feedback has been positive. Groups like not having to worry about the hotels and like having all the things to do right there on the event page. Our website is mainly for sports organizers, so we previously had to create a visitor page from another software program. Creating a new visitor page for each event was time consuming. Working with Playeasy has allowed us to create an event page with visitor information in 15 to 30 minutes instead.

A crucial part to this too is now being able to target the teams with the right visitor information – group dining, group activities like family fun entertainment, aviation and festivals. Different sports groups have different interests, so adding an extra layer of tailoring around information for things to do for Soccer Tournaments versus Quadball Events has helped us give attendees a better visitor experience. 

Q5: How has increased visibility and data from Playeasy helped you support your hotel partners? 

We have strong relationships with our hoteliers. We send hotel leads to all the hotels in Snohomish County and the sports team talks with them on a regular basis whether by phone, email, or a meeting. 

What Playeasy has added is analytics. Over the last few years, analytics and AI have become important for destinations, especially around capturing room nights. For us, the relationship between events and room nights is very specific and intentional, so Playeasy gives us insight we don’t get from popular geo-tracking tools, especially as a smaller organization. 

It helps us understand where people come from, what events they’re looking at, which hotels they’re clicking on, and overall engagement. Since we don’t use Playeasy’s live rates, we still can’t track exact bookings unless it’s a play-to-stay model through a third-party. But the data gives us a clearer picture than we had before. 

That said, our metrics go beyond hotel rooms and economic impact. My phrase is “Sports and community go hand in hand”. Whether it’s a spectator event like Nitro Circus World Tour or a participatory event, such as Perfect Game Northwest Baseball tournaments, being part of the community matters. Quality of life, health, and wellbeing are just as important to us as room nights. 

Q6: How do you view stay to play, is that something you do? 

Our Hoteliers like working with us rather than a third-party because our hoteliers know that we’re going to take care of them. And then they also know that they’re not going to need to pay a 10% commission and increase the rates. Ultimately, it’s parents that suffer from increased hotel rates. 

We used a third party housing company many years ago and there were so many challenges. It was a vicious cycle where parents would call the hotel and the hotel goes, “I’m sorry but you need to talk to the third party”. When organizers do work with third parties though, we make sure to communicate that to our hoteliers ahead of time to alleviate any issues we might run into. 

Q7: How do you maintain those relationships with all the hotels amidst turnover and continue to build trust? 

There are many situations where we are meeting with a new hotel sales manager or director as they are new to the hotel. When this happens, we schedule an in-person meeting with the manager/director at the hotel and take a tour of the hotel at the same time.  We meet with them on a regular basis, more than once or twice a year. Open communication about our event calendar is an important piece along with being a part of community events like chamber meetings. They see us out in the community, and we can talk to them and continue to build those relationships. 

Q8: What advice would you give destinations looking to solve challenges around their event housing strategy? 

The first thing is to be intentional with your event housing strategy. Are trackable room nights or metric goals your strategy? Or are you trying to go beyond room nights? Are you creating awareness about sports in the community and partnering with your community members, hoteliers, and local sports organizations? 

One of the biggest things we talk about in sports tourism is building relationships and not hiding anything from your hoteliers or stakeholders. It all depends on who your stakeholders are though and figuring out what’s most important to them – and then focus your attention on improving those metrics.