Who Makes the Travel Arrangements when booking a Keynote Speaker?
When you're organising a conference, corporate event, or any gathering that requires a keynote speaker, one of the logistical considerations is travel. You may be wondering, who is responsible for making these arrangements? The speaker, the event organiser, or Keynote Entertainment?
The experienced team at Keynote Entertainment can take care of the presenter travel and accommodation requirements for you, without any additional fee. This is great for your peace of mind, and a great time-saver.
However, there are certain circumstances when you will want to arrange the travel and accommodation yourself e.g. in order to use your own travel and accommodation providers or booking arrangements.
Keynote Entertainment is very flexible, and happy to work with you, whichever option you choose.
Below are 4 common scenarios regarding the arrangement of travel and accommodation:
- Keynote Entertainment Arrange the Travel & Accommodation: This is beneficial for event organisers as it streamlines the speaker engagement process. Keynote has decades of experience in coordinating logistics for speakers, ensuring they arrive on time and are comfortable. In this scenario, one of our Senior Event Managers will look after arrangements for you. We will confirm all costs in advance, make the bookings on your behalf and simply invoice you for the cost. Again, this is all part of
our service. - Event Organiser Makes the Arrangements: This option is more common with speakers who are local and therefore the travel arrangements are less complex. If the event organiser handles travel and accommodation arrangements, clear communication with us regarding flight times, accommodation preferences, and ground transportation is crucial.
- Arranged by Speaker: Some speakers may prefer to manage their travel and accommodation arrangements to ensure comfort and convenience and maximise loyalty points and other activities at the destination location.
- Hybrid: For some events, shared responsibility for travel and accommodation makes sense. For example, a speaker might like to arrange their flights, but accommodation at the event venue has been booked in bulk by the event organiser, making it more cost effective for the event organiser to arrange food and accommodation.
Key Considerations:
- Budget: The event's budget plays a significant role in determining who handles travel. If the budget is tight, the event organiser might require the speaker to be a local person (to avoid flight costs), or might prefer to manage arrangements directly, but they need to be aware of specific requirements to ensure the appropriate care is given to the speaker.
- Speaker Fees: Speaker fees can be all-inclusive (covering travel) or exclusive (requiring separate reimbursement for travel expenses). We will make sure you understand this during our initial discussions with you in relation to a particular speaker, and these details will be specified in the speaker agreement.
- Communication: Regardless of who handles the arrangements, clear and timely communication is essential. Keynote will be pleased to ensure that the speaker receives all necessary information about the event, and that the speaker is well taken care of in relation to their particular travel needs and preferences.
- Speaker Agreement: A well-drafted speaker agreement is vital. Keynote Entertainment will make sure that the agreement explicitly states who is responsible for travel arrangements, what expenses are covered (flights, accommodation, meals, ground transportation), and the process for reimbursement (if any).
In summary, while Keynote Entertainment absolutely can handle the speaker’s travel arrangements, the actual responsibility can be negotiated and should be clearly defined in the speaker agreement. Clear communication is essential for a smooth and successful event.