The Dark Room Project
During the 2007 Winter Board Meeting, Board Member, Keith Overton raised the idea of a "Dark Room Project". The concept behind the idea is simple. hotels have "dark" or unused rooms at any given time. Rather than leave the rooms vacant, why not donate them to FRLA to be sold by the association, the money raised from these bookings going directly to FRLA's legislative efforts or the FRLA Education Foundation.
We are thrilled to announce that the Dark Room Project is ready for launch!
Over the past several months, the site has been in development. FRLA has worked with a travel booking firm to develop the site while overcoming all of the potential issues involved in selling hotel inventory at a reduced rate. Following are the details, which we feel will make this idea easy to use, and a win-win for all involved.
- Behind the scenes, we are referring to this as the Dark Room Project. To users, the name will be frlahotelsavings.com
- Hoteliers log on to the site, complete an online form, and upload their available inventory. In the event that they wish to remove some listed inventory, it can easily be taken down from the site as long as it has not already been reserved.
- FRLA will promote frlahotelsavings.com to members as a benefit to members and their employees. Any member employee is able to book rooms through the site.
- FRLA will provide re-printable materials such as pay-check stuffers, fliers, etc. to member companies to help them spread the word of this new benefit to their employees.
- After proceeding through a series of check-points, including providing employer name, address, phone number for verification, etc., member employees will then be verified to book through the site. Verification last for two months, after which, employees will proceed through the verification process again. (this is to counter high employee turnover and ensure that users to the site are actually member employees) This process can be adjusted to increase or decrease security as is needed following a period of usage evaluation.
- Once travel is booked, notification will be sent to the hotel's designated reservations contact and the association.
- Credit card payment will be processed online and all revenue will go directly to either FRLA Education Foundation or FRLA PAC. Hoteliers will be given the option of directing their contribution at the time of inventory upload.
If you have questions or would like to participate in the project by donating your unused inventory, please contact Camron Becker at 888-372-9119 ext. 222 or by Clicking Here.
