Why is one event enquiry worth chasing so hard?
Because the money on a single one is unlike anything else that comes through the phone.
The UK held 1.17 million conferences and meetings in 2025, up 8 per cent on 2024, and they put an estimated £22.5 billion into venues and the places around them. The average venue ran 337 of them. The average 24 hour residential rate was £187 a delegate, including VAT.
Do the sums on your own hotel and the point makes itself. A thirty person overnight meeting at that average rate is more than £5,000 before anyone orders a drink at the bar. A wedding is a whole weekend. And most of them start life as one message from one person who is comparing you with three other places.
Miss it and you rarely get a second go. By the time you reply, the planner has often heard back from somewhere else.
Why do event enquiries go cold?
Almost never because the hotel could not do the job. Ask any events team and the pattern is the same.
- The enquiry arrives out of hours. Planners do this research in the evening and at the weekend, because their own day is full.
- It goes to a form on the website, then into an inbox that opens at nine on Monday.
- The person who can answer it properly is off, on the desk, or in a wedding show round.
- The reply, when it comes, asks for more information rather than giving any. Now the planner has to do more work to buy from you.
- Nobody follows it up, because nobody is sure whether it was answered.
Two days later the enquiry is not cold. It is booked, somewhere else.
What does a good first reply actually contain?
Enough for the planner to make a decision, or at least to shortlist you, without sending another email.
- Whether the date is free, and a hold on it if it is.
- A price, or an honest range, with what is included.
- The capacity and the room, in the layout they asked for.
- The one thing that makes your hotel right for this event.
- A clear next step with a name on it: a call, a show round, or a full proposal.
That is not a sales technique. It is just the reply the planner is waiting for, sent while they are still choosing.
Meeting and event enquiries, three ways
| Leave it with the team | An answering service or shared inbox | An always-on agent (Sorino) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers at 9pm on a Sunday | No | Takes a message | Yes, with the actual answer |
| Gives a price and availability | Yes, when someone is free | No | Yes, from what you have given it |
| Holds the date | Yes | No | Yes |
| Every enquiry on the record | Depends who took it | Partly | Yes |
| Knows when to fetch a person | Yes | Always | Yes, by rule |
What does the agent actually do with an event enquiry?
It picks up on the phone, on your website, by email and on social, and it works from what you have given it: your rooms, your capacities, your layouts, your packages and your live availability.
- Answers the questions that decide the shortlist, so capacity, layout, parking, dinner options, bedrooms nearby, accessibility.
- Gives a price from your own rate card, or the range you tell it to give.
- Holds the date while your team picks it up.
- Sets up the show round and puts it in the diary.
- Writes the whole enquiry up, so the events team gets the brief instead of a voicemail saying “call Sarah back”.
Same at eleven at night as at eleven in the morning, and the same on every channel, because they all read from one record.
What will it not decide for you?
- It will not discount. Prices come from you.
- It will not agree a bespoke package, a contract or terms.
- It will not overrule availability, and it will not double book.
- Anything unusual, a full buyout, a difficult date, a wedding with a story behind it, goes to a person, with everything already gathered.
Your events team keeps the conversations that need them. It just stops losing the ones nobody could get to.
How quickly can it go live?
About six weeks. The first fortnight loads your rooms, capacities, packages and rates, and sets the rules for what gets handed to a person. Then the phone and website chat go live and get tuned to your voice, then email and social messages are added, with reporting on so you can see what people asked for and what you were asked to hold. It runs at £299 a month.
Frequently asked
Will it quote for a wedding? It gives a price from your own rate card, or the range you tell it to give. Anything bespoke is gathered and handed to your events team.
What if the date is already held? It works from your live availability, so it will not offer or hold a date that is not there.
Does it replace the events team? No. It covers the hours nobody can, writes the enquiry up properly, and hands over the conversations that need a person.
Which channels does it cover? Phone, website chat, email and social messages, all from the same record, so the answer is the same wherever the planner asks.
Once the booking is held, the same agent can make the stay worth more.
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Answer every festive enquiryThe short version
- One meeting or wedding enquiry is worth more than a week of room nights, and it is usually sent to four hotels at once.
- They are lost to slow, incomplete first replies, not to price.
- A good first reply carries availability, a price, the room, and a named next step.
- The agent answers on every channel, holds the date, sets up the show round and writes the brief.
- It does not discount, agree terms, or handle the unusual ones. Those go to your team.
Sources
- In 2025 the UK held 1.17 million conferences and meetings, up 8 per cent on 2024, generating an estimated £22.5 billion of direct expenditure, with an average of 337 conferences and meetings per venue and an average 24 hour residential rate of £187 including VAT. UK Conference and Meeting Survey (UKCAMS) 2026, UKEvents, sponsored by VisitBritain. ukevents.org.uk