Stay22: Help Attendees Find The Best Accommodation Deals Near Your Event [Review]
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Stay22: What Is It?
Stay22 is a venue-centric, map-based accommodation system for events. The embeddable widget can be placed into any web page, just like a YouTube video. Stay22 makes over 7 million rooms available to attendees in 196 countries, offering attendees the best possible deals for accommodation close to the event venue. The Stay22 embed is free of charge and can be created simply by filling out a few form details on their website.
Stay22 draws its inventory from both hotels and Airbnb. Many attendees are opting for Airbnb over hotel rooms for many reasons including cost, flexibility and simply wanting somewhere to stay that isn’t a hotel room.
Managing room blocks can be a time consuming process and in the event of being unfulfilled, can lead to the event footing the bill for any unused accommodation. By using Stay22, event planners can claw back some of those costs whilst giving attendees more freedom of choice over where to stay without straying too far from the event itself.
Stay22 not only saves event planners time by removing the need to reserve hotel room blocks but can, in fact, create revenue for events through affiliate partnership. Affiliate partners receive a share of the revenue from bookings made through the widget.
The Main Categories of Features Are:
Custom Design. Event planners can easily create branded accommodation maps to embed on event websites.
Accommodation Booking. Save time reserving room blocks by offering the best deals on local rooms.
Easy Set Up. Event Planners only need to fill out one form to create a fully branded venue-centric accommodation map.
Review
Stay22 is a free accommodation system which allows attendees to book hotels or Airbnbs directly from a map widget embedded in the event website. By simply filling out a one-page web form, event planners can have the map up and running in a few minutes.
The resulting map shows the event venue at the centre with the various accommodation options highlighted by pins on the map indicating the price of each room. Attendees using the map can then filter accommodation based on their own individual needs (type of accommodation, number of guests, how many nights etc.).
Creating A Map
Event accommodation maps are created by filling out a form found by clicking the “Get my accommodation map” form on the Stay22 website. On the right hand side of the form is a live preview of the map widget as it will be seen on the event website. The preview map updates in real time as the details are filled out on the left hand side of the page.
The form is divided into four parts: event information, design your widget, add partner hotels and add points of interest. The first part, “event information”, is the only compulsory part of the form. This section updates the map with key information about the event such as event name, dates, location and URL. On updating the location, the live preview will update immediately, showing accommodation listings and prices around the event.
For large sites featuring multiple events, accommodation maps can also be created programmatically, generating the code needed for the embed themselves. Details of how to do this are easily found in the documentation area of the Stay22 website.
On submitting the form, the widget is live. The creator will receive a link by email to a page where they can edit the map and/or access the embed code.
Customizing Event Branding
On the next part of the form, event planners can upload the event logo and change the widget colors to match the branding of the event website. Once uploaded, the event logo is shown in the center of the map marker, representing the location of the event. To better suit event branding, three different map modes are available: light, dark and standard – with standard being a traditional color set, similar to that found on Google Maps.
Further customization of branding is possible by adding extra terms to the embed code. Extra branding customizations include hiding and showing of different widget elements and changing the color of discrete elements such as hotel pins.
Listing Accommodation
Accommodation near to the event is automatically shown on the map as soon as a location is entered for the event. In the setup form, the event planner can choose to exclude Airbnbs or hotels but can’t choose to exclude individual rooms or hotels from the listings shown.
Nearby accommodation is shown on the map using place markers displaying the per-night cost for each room. Rolling over the pin with a mouse reveals the name and star rating – based on reviews from HotelsCombined and Airbnb respectively – of the accommodation, as well as the route, distance and estimated time from the event itself. Clicking on a pin takes the attendee straight to the booking page for that particular accommodation.
From the setup form event managers can also manually add the details of partner hotels offering special deals for event attendees. Partner hotels can also be added to a web page featuring the widget by using HTML code.
Adding Points Of Interest
Stay22 features the ability to add custom points of interest (POI) to the map widget. This feature can be used to mark partner restaurants, bars or fringe activities on the map, giving the attendee travel times and distances to and from the event.
As with partner hotels, custom POIs can be added to a web page, and subsequently the widget, using code provided by Stay22.
Tracking Out Of Town Attendees
Event planners can keep an eye on how many people attending their event are booking accommodation by way of a private dashboard, accessible after account creation. The dashboard also allows event planners to gain insight into which types of accommodation and which hotels are popular as well as whether guests are extending their stay or if they are staying with others.
Features
Custom Design
- Fully branded accommodation map
- Option to show event dates on map
- Links to more info about the event
- Three map styles available; standard, light and dark
Accommodation Booking
- Inventory of over 7 million rooms in 196 countries
- Ability to show special rates for partner hotels
- Attendee can filter accommodation by price, stay length, number of guests and type of accommodation
- Reviews from Airbnb and HotelsCombined
- Attendees can book straight from the widget
- Get dashboard access to reports on where, when and how your out of town attendees are staying
- Events can become affiliate partners and earn from bookings made through the widget
Easy Setup
- One-page, single form setup
- Live preview shows widget as it will appear on the event website
- Embeds into event websites with just one line of code – like a YouTube video
- Free of charge
- Can be embedded on multiple websites (fringe events; multi-venue)
Who Is It For?
Stay22 is aimed at planners, promoters, and producers of a broad range of events including conferences, music festivals and sports events, as well as small events like weddings and parties.
Stay22 also caters for sites listing multiple events or experiences and offers an affiliate program for websites sending bookings through its platform.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Completely free of charge to install and use – also eliminates the time cost of reserving and managing room blocks
- Fully branded experience for attendees
- Quick, easy one-page setup with advanced customization if required
Cons
- Stay22 has no B2C metasearch (it’s not a directory site)
- Limited in terms of integration with other event planning software (a small number of platforms are supported)
Pricing and Plans
The Stay22 widget is completely free of charge, regardless of how many events or websites use it.
For websites sending bookings through Stay22, affiliate partnerships are available. This allows the website(s) hosting the widget to take a cut of the revenue from the booking.
In Conclusion
Stay22 offers event planners a quick and easy way to ensure their attendees are able to book the best possible accommodation deals close to the event.
While it lacks the complexity of some accommodation systems on the market and doesn’t integrate with other software, this is more than made up for the time saved by event planners and its free price tag.
Disclaimer: Reviews are paid for placements. While Event Manager Blog receives a fee to extensively look at the tool and review it in detail, the content of the review is independent and by no means influenced by the company. If you have any questions please use the contact us section.