Hotels dont seem interested in taking our wedding venue booking.

Aiel

Has anyone else been having the same trouble as myself and my fiance have been having lately of hotels not seeming to be one bit bothered about taking our wedding booking??
Its like they dont want our business and in these times its even more shocking.To name and shame who were the worst offenders in Galway City/County-The Clybaun Hotel and The Park Lodge.We eventually did decide on the Salthill Hotel but even they were'nt exactly super efficent with getting back to us.Its very frustrating.Countless emails,phone call's and even going to the places to meet managers or arrange meetings with managers proved very frustrating.
Has anyone else any stories of frustration etc??

clint_silver

Aiel wrote: »

Has anyone else been having the same trouble as myself and my fiance have been having lately of hotels not seeming to be one bit bothered about taking our wedding booking??
Its like they dont want our business and in these times its even more shocking.To name and shame who were the worst offenders in Galway City/County-The Clybaun Hotel and The Park Lodge.We eventually did decide on the Salthill Hotel but even they were'nt exactly super efficent with getting back to us.Its very frustrating.Countless emails,phone call's and even going to the places to meet managers or arrange meetings with managers proved very frustrating.
Has anyone else any stories of frustration etc??

Theres usually a general level of whats acceptable timelines of communications when dealing with someone, anyone, in business. If those places were outside those levels, then look elsewhere.

You only get one chance to make a first impresssion.

I would say in general, I meet brilliant and not so brilliant people working in hotels. Quality of hotel has nothing to do with it. I was doing a wedding in a Top rated hotel in wexford last friday night (very swanky) and all in all the worst staff of any hotel Ive been in this year for numerous reasons. I wont name it but literally jaw dropping stuff happening.

But conversely (and I will name them cos theyre brilliant) the Riverside in gorey on saturday night had some of the best staff (and always are any time Im there). not to say the riverside isnt top rated but just goes to show you dont have to be 5* to have good staff, but also 5* doesnt guarantee good staff either.

Definitely look elsewhere.

wildflower

i definintey understand where u are coming from, we were organising our wedding last yr and most of the hotels didnt seem to have any interest in our wedding bar 1 or 2. it was like as if they were so busy (which they werent) that they didnt need to make any effort. i found the bigger, newer hotels to be the worst but not alone.
we went with 1 of the ones that cudnt help us enough and 8mths on we are so happy we stuck to our gut instincts. but i wonder where hotels are getting the idea its ok to show total lack of interest and not reply to calls and emails.

RickyBobby1

We had an absolute nightmare with Lisloughrey Lodge.I was very suprised as they were very nice with our first conversation over the phone with them.But thats where It ended.After 2 weeks of endless phone calls and emails we finally got a half arsed email.They said they were having problems with recieving and sending emails.But how would that effect them ringing us or at least have the nerve to speak to us on the phone.
I supose the fact we were only having 21 people to the meal they couldnt care less about us.

I have to say everywhere else have being excellent.Especially Nora in the Claregalway,she couldnt do anymore for us.

Gatica

Lisloughrey changed ownership and management a couple of time in the last year or two. You may have been unlucky enough to have fallen a little through the cracks during your dealings with them.

In respect to most places for weddings, I know we're in a recession but you'd be surprised how popular weddings are in the last year or two. There are so many that I don't think hotels who do many weddings are dying for business in general, hence some of the apathy...
However I must commend Mount Falcon (cos that's where we'll be getting wed). They gave us such fantastic treatment all round. It takes no more than 2 days to get a reply to an enquiry from either the wedding coordinator or the accommodation staff.

Sleepy

I think it's the same as many other things in this recession: hotels offering value for money (whether that's an average wedding at a budget price or a seriously high end one at a more reasonable than one might imagine price) aren't stuck for business. The same goes for bands, DJ's, Photographers etc. If they're good and not pricing themselves out of the market, they're busy. There are still builders in this country that are having to turn down business because they're so busy!

Demographically, the children of the late 70's / early 80's are all hitting our early 30's so that's going to be having an influence on the numbers getting married too. There may not be the same room for wedding providers to fleece us as there would have been 5/6 years ago but there's plenty of business out there for those happy to make reasonable profit margins rather than insane ones.