If you’ve ever tried to book a corporate offsite or team retreat, you know it’s nothing like booking a simple flight or hotel for one person.
Let’s say your company’s 50-person sales team wants to gather next quarter. You’re excited about the event. It might be one of the few times per year that the whole function gets together.
But then the reality hits: someone has to plan it.
Suddenly, what should be a fun team experience turns into a part-time job of hunting for hotels, juggling email quotes, and playing phone tag with sales managers. And that’s before managing the dozens of vendors that will come with such a high investment.
As a founder who’s felt this pain and is building a company to help make it easier for our customers, I’ll say it plainly:
Booking hotels for corporate groups is a sh*t show.
And yet, it’s more important, and more common, than ever.
In this post, we’ll explore:
- Why group travel matters more than ever
- How booking hotels for groups is broken
Spoiler: this market is huge, growing, and has a ton of issues.
Why group travel is a problem worth solving
Remote and hybrid work have reshaped how companies build culture. Without a physical office, in-person gatherings are how teams:
- Connect with their team members
- Build trust
- Align on big goals
- Brainstorm creative ideas
And so much more…
According to Gallup, 50% of companies are still hybrid and 25% are remote. That means over 75% of U.S. workers are in hybrid or remote roles.
With such distributed teams, intentional in-person time is more critical than ever.
These gatherings aren’t just about culture - they’re strategic.
- Dropbox pioneered Virtual First, replacing offices with regular offsites
- Zillow adopted a similar model, calling retreats "the new headquarters."
- Atlassian launched Intentional Team Gatherings (ITG) in August of 2022, and has hosted 1,600 offsites since with 96% employee satisfaction
More and more companies are following suit.
Modern companies often invest in hubs for their in-person teams in various cities and group travel in the form of on-sites, off-sites, and retreats.
Group travel is a $300B+ market, and a worthwhile investment
First, let’s grasp how big corporate group travel really is.
We’re talking about team offsites, company retreats, sales kickoffs, internal conferences. All the trips where multiple employees converge for a shared purpose.
Group travel isn’t discretionary or wasteful spend. It’s becoming core to how distributed companies operate.
There’s plenty of data to back that up.
- Atlassian’s “1,000 Days Distributed” study found employee connection improved by 27% after in-person gatherings and stayed elevated for months.
- Face-to-face communication is 34x more effective than virtual communication (Harvard Business Review)
- Teams report 25% better collaboration after offsites (source: Teamraderie survey via Forbes)
- Companies that prioritize employee connection see 32% lower turnover (Gallup, 2022)
Strong relationships = more cohesive and productive teams.
Why booking hotels for corporate groups is a sh*t show
So if group travel is so important…why is booking it still such a pain?
It boils down to this: booking for one and booking for 20+ are completely different animals. But the industry treats them almost the same - until it breaks.
Here’s the difference:
Individual travel (aka transient travel)
- Go to a platform like Expedia, Booking, Hotels, Concur
- Search, see live availability, click "book"
- Done in minutes
Group travel
- Need 20 rooms, a meeting space, maybe catering or A/V
- Can’t see real-time pricing or availability
- Have to submit an RFP (Request for Proposal) or email hotel sales teams
- Then wait… and wait
- That’s before managing dozens of onsite and offsite vendors and large budgets for group trips
It’s like booking a flight where you email Delta and hope they reply next week with a quote. Sounds ridiculous, but that’s still the norm for group travel.
Why it’s so bad
- RFPs can take 75+ days to get through the system (yes, even for small groups)
- Hotels get flooded with leads and have to triage what to respond to
- 80% of planners say they want RFP replies within 4 days - but often wait longer
Even once you get responses, you're juggling
- Inconsistent formats (PDF menus, Excel pricing, random phone calls)
- No way to compare pricing apples-to-apples
- Internal coordination with execs and attendees
- Contract negotiation, deposits, room lists, and more
Don’t forget the internal coordination: taking all those options to your team’s leadership (“Here are three venue options - which do we pick?”), managing attendee info, special requests, and eventually dealing with contracts and deposits.
It’s a project-manager’s Super Bowl. No wonder many HR or operations folks tasked with offsites say it’s one of the worst parts of their job.
A quick case study
We work with People Ops managers who budget dozens of hours to plan a single offsite.
One 66-person retreat we supported had previously taken their team 70+ hours to coordinate. That’s nearly two full workweeks - time pulled away from hiring, onboarding, and everything else on their plate.
Here’s what they were dealing with:
- Sourcing and comparing 10+ hotel options
- Negotiating pricing and perks without clear benchmarks
- Coordinating with execs, finance, and attendees
- Managing contracts, deposits, and last-minute changes
And they almost overpaid.
- Without tools or benchmarks, they couldn’t tell if their rate was competitive
- By working with Marco, they saved $95K - nearly 30% of the total cost
- Booked a better-fit venue, on better terms, with far less lift
You can read more about it on the Marco blog here.
The takeaway
Group travel today is fragmented, opaque, and painfully manual. It’s the last corner of corporate travel that still operates like it's 1999.
Marco is solving this problem with Instant Offsites - where teams can explore, compare, and book hotels for groups faster, easier, and more affordably than ever.
We're launching out of beta in June, but want to see a sneak peek?
Stay tuned for next week
Next, I’ll dive into the current landscape: What solutions have cropped up? How are teams booking offsites today, and with what mashup of tools? Why do we think that the problem is still largely unsolved?
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is booking hotels for groups so difficult?
Group hotel bookings involve negotiating rates across multiple properties, managing room blocks, coordinating meeting space, handling F&B minimums, and navigating cancellation policies - all while comparing options across different formats and terms. Most companies do this only 2-3 times a year, so they lack the expertise and leverage to get the best deals.
How much can companies save on group hotel bookings?
Companies typically save 20-30% by using a dedicated group travel platform like Marco, compared to booking directly with hotels. The savings come from volume-based negotiating power, preferred partner relationships, and expertise in contract terms like attrition clauses and resort fees.
What is a hotel RFP for group bookings?
An RFP (Request for Proposal) is the formal process of soliciting quotes from hotels for group stays. It typically includes dates, room count, meeting space needs, F&B requirements, and budget parameters. Without a platform like Marco, this means emailing 10+ hotels individually and comparing inconsistent responses.
What size groups benefit from corporate group booking services?
Any group of 10 or more rooms per night typically qualifies for group rates. The savings scale with group size - a 50-person offsite with 25 rooms will see more significant savings than a 10-person team dinner. Marco works with groups from 20 to 500+ employees.
Ready to plan your next offsite? Take our retreat quiz to get matched with the perfect destination, or book a consultation with our team.