JW Marriott Hotel Singapore South Beach (PASSKEY)
JW Marriott Singapore South Beach is located in the centre of the art and cultural hub of Singapore. The tall hotel building stands within moments of the Central Business District, Marina Bay and National Stadium. The hotel provides direct access to Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, adding to its prime location. Fashioned in French design and British architecture, the hotel offers 634 warm and comfortable guest rooms and suites. Rebranded and redesigned in December 2016, the hotel features 15 modern function rooms and an elegant Grand Ballroom spread across 1,662 square metres of total meeting space. The hotel’s grand ballroom features the largest LED wall in Singapore with all meeting rooms fully equipped with advanced audiovisual technology.
The Challenge - Save Time, Save Money
After coming under the Marriott International umbrella, hotel added beautiful meeting and event spaces and turned into a full-blown convention hotel. Blake Walker, Director of Food & Beverage at the hotel talks,“We’re obviously dealing with lots of event planners and event organisers and we’re trying to meet and exceed their expectations with everything we do” . However, the hotel team was still applying conventional methods to handle the high volume of new MICE requests. The lack of automation was not only resulting in inefficient and manual processing but also inconvenient for the clients. “Our event managers used to spend a lot of time explaining the different offers to the guests. They, also, had to manually put them into the system,” adds Blake. The hotel team needed a system which could save their time and provide a great booking experience to their clients.
The Solution - Put Planner First
JW Marriott Singapore South Beach was already leveraging Cvent’s Search Ad solutions to boost their MICE game, and so they decided to try Passkey – Cvent’s room block technology. Blake says, ”With Cvent comes in something like Passkey that we use on a regular basis to have a much quicker, more efficient conversation with the organisers, and they’re able to make required changes to the event”.
Cvent Passkey enabled the hotel team to fill room blocks faster, minimise attrition risk, receive real-time data on pickup rates and other essential metrics, automate time-consuming tasks, and much more. The system also allows event planners to pull reports that save them time, eliminate hassle, and avoid the constant back and forth with hotel staff. Thanks to Passkey, Blake and his team were able to focus back on what matters most: building trust and delivering best-in-class customer service. “It has really become a game-changer in terms of making it more convenient for the organisers to interact with our hotel,” adds Blake.
Using Passkey, the hotel team could automatically promote and sell room upgrades, extended stays, amenities, packages, and earn additional revenue. “We’re also able to push through promotions, highlight unique things about the hotel and bring new opportunities for F&B. This really helps us drive incremental business on the top of the business we have from the events,” he says.
What’s Next - Long-term Relationship
In addition to Passkey, Blake also sees the benefits of the global partnership with Cvent. The increased exposure to event planners has helped him and his team attract more business and make the process more streamlined and strategic. “We definitely see Cvent as a longstanding partner,” he believes strongly. “I think that’s where all the best relationships come from–sharing the same vision, and here, it is putting the guest first”.