Planning and coordinating travel for a meeting or event that includes both internal and external attendees across multiple regions, offices and countries is a complex task. Our new events feature was created to address this challenge.
Make event travel management a breeze
We have simplified travel management for groups of any size traveling to the same destination, to make it easier for people to gather in person and build stronger bonds through shared in-person experiences.
With this tool, company meeting- and event planners benefit from:
- Simple event creation
Create new events in minutes by defining the event name, dates, location, and description. Then, add branding by uploading preferred imagery or choosing from a selection of AI-generated event images. - No limit on the number of attendees
Whether it’s a small gathering or a large-scale event, we've got you covered. - Invite non-employee guest
Are you flying in board members or have a guest speaker join your event?Now event organizers can invite non-employee travelers from outside their organization to attend an event and book their own travel. - Advanced travel controls – apply travel policies and specify event travel windows, types of allowed bookings (air, hotel, car, and rail), designated airports and/or hotels, and payment methods.
- Easy invite features – easily add employees and unprofiled guest travelers to an invite list through HR integrations, list uploads, or manual entry, send a customized email prompting invitees to book their own travel, and follow up with automated reminders.
- Self-service bookings, exchanges, and cancellations – enable employees and guest travelers to book their own travel, manage exchanges, and cancel trips without agent assistance.
- Real-time event insights – access real-time data to monitor booking status for invitees and travel spend.
How does the events feature work?
Events allow you to invite attendees, specify the types of bookings that are allowed, set travel dates and windows, specify the payment methods that can be used, bulk-invite attendees to book their own trip, and send notifications and reminders to attendees.
Only Company Administrators or Company Travel Arrangers can create events. Attendees can book the travel modes (air, rail, car, rail) and accommodation (hotel) that the administrator has requested for the event.
This feature is available for all Goodwings customers. Please reach out to your designated Customer Success contact to activate the events feature.
Comprehensive support for guest travelers
With the events feature, organizers can invite non-employee guest travelers outside their organization to attend an event and book their own travel. This can be for a guest speaker attending a company event, board members you are flying in, a client engagement, or any other need.
Typically, the traveler in these scenarios does not have a profile in the corporate online booking tool and does not have a company-issued credit card. With this easy-to-use tool, we're taking the burden off of event organizers and other travel arrangers having to manage travel for non-employees.
Upon receiving the event invite, guests book their own travel within the defined set of boundaries for the event, in compliance with configurable guest policies, and using the pre-set payment method. Event organizers are then able to view the guest traveler’s booking status and, if needed, easily send booking reminders.
24/7 global support
Travelers can request support at any point in their booking process. Agents are available 24/7 and can be reached via live chat, email, or phone.
Things to consider before creating your first event
If you plan to invite company guests (non-employees) to events:
- Make sure that you have defined at least one policy in the Non-employee section of the Policies page. This is required so approvals can potentially (depending on how you set the policy) be generated for any out-of-policy bookings made by guest attendees.
You can review your non-employee (guest) policies by selecting Policies from the Program menu and then expanding the Non-employee section on the left under Policy. To create a new non-employee policy, click Add new. -
Your company must have at least one payment method that has been set to allow use by the Traveler Type of "Company guest" or "All Travelers".
Otherwise, company guests won’t have a credit card they can use to pay for bookings associated with the event you invited them to attend. You have two options:-
To check if you already have an applicable payment method, select Company from the Program menu, then select Payment methods from the Payment menu (on the left). Then, ensure that at least one payment type (under the Central payment methods section) has the Traveler type field set to either All Travelers or Company guest. Also, be sure that the payment method doesn't have any settings or restrictions that could make it unable to be used by guest users (e.g., the legal entity doesn’t match the guest’s legal entity, the booking modes allowed don’t match those specified in the event, etc.).
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If there are no applicable payment methods already defined, you can add one from within the event by clicking Add a new card from the menu in the Payment method section.
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Communications and Notifications
If the administrator has enabled email invitations, attendees will receive email notifications that they have been invited to an event. Otherwise, the attendees will only see a new event card on their Events page. For any bookings they make to attend the event, attendees will receive the normal trip notification emails.
Attendees may also receive reminder invitations from the administrator if the date of their event is nearing and they have not yet made all the required bookings.
Overrides and limitations
- Only company administrators can make bookings which violate the constraints of the event (e.g., dates outside the defined date range, at a hotel not specified). To make a booking for an attendee, company administrators:
- Access the Book page (not the Events page).
- Select the traveler for whom they want to book event-related travel.
- Book the event-related travel and select the relevant event name from the Trip name field (on the second Checkout page).
- Agents, travelers, and arrangers can only make event bookings which comply with the constraints set by the administrator who created the event.
- Agents can’t view the Events page or create new events. To make bookings for an event attendee, agents must use the traveler’s Trips page.