Ways to Save Money When Planning Your Business Event
In the age of tighter budgets and less expendable income, streamlining costs has become a fixture of everyday business. For the sake of brevity, here are just a few of the many ideas on how to save money when organizing an event for your business in the Klang area of Kuala Lumpur.
Plan Earlier
Plan and organize your event with plenty of lead time and be flexible about dates. Many venues offer more affordable rates if you can be flexible with your dates.
Shop around before deciding. Compare prices with your event planner, understanding that it’s better to get most of what you want and save money, instead of getting everything you want and breaking the bank.
Hotels in Kuala Lumpur like those hotels around KLCC and Proximity are excellent value for money and do justice to the number of stars they have been awarded. They also offer flexible options for meeting rooms and have award-winning restaurants on site.
Have The Event Planner To Handle All Payments
Make the Event Planner responsible for the handling of all payments. If several people handle payments, it can lead to a communication error, confusion, and difficulties in tracking expenditure.
The low-cost flight boom has opened up the travel market, as well as offering a host of new destinations for your clients. Booking travel arrangements that offer an online package of flight + hotel + car may be time-consuming but can save your company money in the long run.
Some venues will negotiate rates based on the number of attendees and the potential for revenue. Check with the event planners and Event Planning for a list of the hundreds of venues they have partnerships with. A venue’s popularity, the size, and notoriety of your company, the amount of competition in the area, and the time of year, all influence the possibilities of negotiation.
The most common venue discounts you can expect to obtain are those for early booking, as in six months to a year in advance. The same goes for hotel meeting space: some offer free space, depending on the size of the room block and the length of stay, while others do not.
Consider flexibility in meeting days. Meeting space might be cheaper on some days – from Sundays to Fridays, usually – than on others.
Offer your target audience incentive discounts for early registration. This will attract more attendees to your event, generating more revenue to cover the cost of the event, and assuring a strong attendance.
If yours is an annual or seasonal event, or if you envisage holding a number of meetings in the same location, an economic solution is to negotiate all your business meetings/events with the same corporate event planner, the same hotel, venue and/or suppliers.
This saves money in the long run because your business’ event needs will be kept in a client file and regularly updated, rather than having to “start from scratch” each year.
Keep the number of suppliers to a minimum. Bundle as many services as possible with the same supplier, and choose a corporate event planner to help you out, with the capabilities of shopping supplier services on your behalf.
Plan Your Event in Hotel
Quite a few hotels and outside catering companies in the KL area give corporate discounts, and discounts for early booking and large events. These will probably be in-kind discounts such as food or wine upgrades, meeting room upgrades, or extensions on event time limits.
If the event is to be held at a hotel, make sure that the event planner and hotel staff have a list of the people authorized to charge things to a master account. Make it clear that you (and/or your company) will not be held responsible for any unauthorized expenditures, especially outside purchases of beer and wine and other amenities.
When staging your event outside, reliable weather means you save on having to have an alternative plan should it rain. Remember the importance of planning in advance, and seasonally, for outdoor events!
The reliability of the weather is an important factor (and can be an expensive disappointment) when planning outdoor activities like picnics, golf, and adventure incentives.
Some museums and attractions in KL offer discounts to large groups. Most of the event planners did maintain a large list of outside the box venues such as museums, parks, the zoo, and other area attractions. Ask about group rates for your business event.
Discounts for KL area concerts, plays, lectures, wine tasting, and other entertainment are also available for large groups and for early booking.
Transportation
Local taxis are relatively inexpensive. They are always a handy alternative to car rental. In addition, most KL area hotels offer free or deeply discounted shuttle services. If not, there is also a Grabcar service available which is very convenient for you to grab a car anywhere you are.
