Alternative

The Event Temple alternative for independent venues

Event Temple is a solid sales tool for hotels and chains, built around the PMS. For a manor house, an estate, or a standalone hall with no PMS, that hotel logic is extra weight. Joinways starts from your inquiries, not your rooms.

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Which Event Temple alternative if you have no hotel PMS?

Event Temple is designed for hotels and chains: group sales, PMS synchronization, multi-property reporting. Joinways is built for independent event venues with no PMS: inquiries centralized and extracted automatically, VAT-ready quotes, a multi-space calendar, live in two weeks, at a price you can read.

No PMS required: the tool starts from your incoming inquiries, not from a hotel system
Automatic extraction of criteria (date, headcount, budget) on every inquiry received
Quotes with tax-inclusive/exclusive pricing and VAT, read tracking, and prepared follow-ups
Set up in two weeks, with no IT team and no integration to configure
Clear pricing for independents; EU-based support, data hosted in the EU

Sizing your tool change correctly

Choosing between a hotel tool and an independent-venue tool is first a question of scope: cover what you need, drop what belongs to chains, and switch fast.

List your real usage over one month (inquiries handled, quotes sent, spaces scheduled): that scope is what the new tool must cover 100%, and the rest is dead weight

Be wary of features that assume another system (PMS, channel manager): without it, they produce nothing yet complicate every screen and every invoice

Set a two-week switch with milestones: week one, connections and catalog; week two, the team handles new inquiries for real and the old system goes read-only

Right-sizing indicators

Time from green light to the first quote sent from the new tool (aim: under two weeks)
Share of paid features actually used (target: close to 100%)
Inquiry conversion rate (venues that formalize their triage convert visibly better, so track it monthly)

What sets right-sized independent venues apart

The independent venues that progress fastest choose a tool aligned with their reality (inquiries, quotes, calendar) rather than a cut-down version of a chain system. A tool fully used by a team of three beats a hotel suite used at 20%.

Why look for an alternative

Event Temple thinks like a hotel: PMS, rooms, chains

Event Temple earned its place with hotels: group sales, banquets, PMS. If your venue is an estate or an independent hall, that logic has a cost: hotel features you never use, configuration built for chains, pricing that's hard to project.

Hotel-first demos keep coming back to PMS sync and group sales, while a manor house that hires out its spaces just has inquiries, quotes, and a calendar
Part of the tool's value sits in the PMS integration: without a PMS, you configure, and pay for, machinery that does nothing for you
Hotel terminology throughout (group sales, rooming lists): an independent venue's team is forever translating its own business into hotel-speak
Tax-inclusive/exclusive handling and VAT take rework before quotes go out compliant

The alternative for independents

A tool that starts from your inquiries, not your PMS

Joinways starts from what actually runs an independent venue: the inquiry. No upfront integration, no hotel module: you connect your mailboxes and your team is operational in two weeks.

Start with no technical dependency: connect Gmail, Outlook, or Microsoft 365 and your website form, that's it
Calendar, list, and kanban across spaces with availability conflict detection, no hotel system behind it
VAT-ready quotes, "Read" tracking, prepared follow-ups, and electronic signature
Clear pricing for independents, EU-based support, data hosted in the EU

Joinways vs Event Temple: for an independent venue

Event Temple remains solid for hotels and chains. A comparison from the standpoint of an independent with no PMS.

Feature	Joinways	Event Temple
Automatic inquiry extraction (email, platforms)	Yes	Partial
Tax-inclusive/exclusive quotes with VAT	Yes	Partial
Quote opens tracked, follow-up drafts ready	Yes	Partial
Kanban and multi-space calendar	Yes	Yes
Two-week setup with no IT team	Yes	Partial
Pricing an independent can budget for	Yes	Partial
EU-based support (European time zones)	Yes	No
EU hosting / GDPR-native	Yes	Partial

What changes in practice

What the switch changes for an independent venue

What the switch is designed to change, with no rooms and no PMS required. Judge it on your own inquiries during the free trial.

Focused

Conversion rate

Inquiry qualification and prepared follow-ups concentrate selling time on the deals that can close, built to move conversion visibly within months.

Hours back

Time saved per person

Automatic extraction, reply templates, and catalog-based quotes: each salesperson gets real selling time back every day.

< 4 hrs

First reply

Inquiries centralized and prioritized: a first reply in under four hours becomes the norm, not the exception.

Figures are illustrative: they describe what a structured process is designed to make possible, not measured Joinways customer results. Actual results vary by venue.

Who Joinways replaces Event Temple for

The independent profiles that don't need hotel logic.

Related product pages: Events · Integrations

Manor houses, castles, and estates

Receptions, offsites, weddings: a space calendar with Option and Confirmed statuses, VAT-ready quotes, a function sheet (BEO) for the day itself. The full sales cycle, with no hotel system to plug in.

Halls and multi-room venues

An inquiry kanban per space, availability conflict detection between rooms, confirmed revenue by space and by period. The shared calendar view prevents double bookings without a channel manager.

Independent boutique hotels

Private hires and offsites managed on the events side: inquiries, quotes, BEO, and follow-ups in Joinways, while your PMS keeps running the rooms. Each tool in its role, no integration project.

Illustrative scenario

A Yorkshire manor house picks Joinways over Event Temple

Starting point

An event manor house in the Yorkshire countryside (weddings, offsites, private receptions) wants out of Excel. The team evaluates Event Temple: a convincing demo, but centered on the PMS and hotel group sales. The manor has no rooms to sync and no revenue management team, and the pricing, built for hotels, is hard to project for three people.

The setup

Joinways set up in two weeks: Outlook inbox and website form connected, calendar for the three spaces (orangery, barn, grounds), service catalog with tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive pricing, five reply templates. No technical integration, no IT team.

Six months later

Conversion rate up from 21% to 29%, first reply in under four hours, about an hour and a half saved per person per day. In this scenario, the team ends up with a tool its own size: it understands what it pays for, and it uses all of it.

Owner

Illustrative scenario - event manor house

Illustrative scenario based on typical venue outcomes, not an actual named customer.

Frequently asked questions

Does Joinways work without a PMS?

Yes, that is its design: centralized inquiries, VAT-ready quotes, a multi-space calendar, function sheets, and follow-ups all work with no hotel system. If you already run a PMS for accommodation, each keeps its role: the PMS manages rooms, Joinways manages event sales, with no integration to maintain.

What is different from Event Temple day to day?

Event Temple organizes hotel sales: groups, banquets, the PMS link, chain reporting. Joinways organizes the life of an independent venue: inquiries extracted automatically, qualification, native VAT-ready quotes, a multi-space calendar, prepared follow-ups. Up and running in two weeks, EU-based support, pricing you can read.

How long until we are operational?

Two weeks on average: inboxes and form connected, service catalog, reply templates, history import if needed. No IT team, no scoping workshops: the team handles its real inquiries from week one.

When is Event Temple still the right choice?

If you are a hotel or hotel group whose group and banquet sales need to talk to the PMS and revenue management, with multi-property reporting, Event Temple is built for that and does it well. For an independent venue with no PMS, most of that value goes unused.

Where is the data hosted, and who can access it?

In the European Union, with GDPR compliance built in. With no PMS in the loop, your event and client data lives in one place instead of being split across hotel systems. Access is role-based within your team, and you can export everything you have stored at any time, unconditionally.

Can we try Joinways before deciding?

Yes. The trial is free and commitment-free: connect your inbox, handle your real inquiries, and judge on your actual day-to-day, not on a demo. Full setup then takes two weeks.

Related product pages

Events Integrations Clients & companies