Airlines & Group Air Travel

A set of individuals traveling together and involved in similar activities. There are two types of groups:



Affinity groups - composed of people whose common interest lies outside of the trip (e.g. a church group).

Transient groups - composed of people whose common interest is the destination or the overall activity of the trip. 



Altogether, the industry refers to the groups as SMERF groups: Social, Military, Educational, Religious and Fraternal. In addition to the social aspects of traveling together, individuals travel in groups to benefit from lower product group rates. Group rates can be contracted for hotels, airlines, motorcoach and other forms of transportation, ticketed events and miscellaneous items.  In negotiating and contracting rates with a product provider (e.g. hotel or airline), a travel agent/agency; buys in bulk to get the product at a discount rate. Products purchased this way are usually referred to as blocked space.



A group product consists of a single blocked space item (e.g. a hotel room, or an air fare).



A group package consists of multiple blocked space items combined into a single offering that may or may not allow for variation.



Once thought of as retired people traveling around on chartered motorcoaches, Group Travel is now thought of as essentially any group of people (usually 10 or larger) who are organizing any form of travel. People generally think of large organized groups such as sports, religious, schools etc. but it can still be more informal such as a group going on a golf or shopping trip.