Today’s event planners have got their hands full. They are managing more events with more attendees and handling larger budgets than ever before. According to the Australia edition of Cvent’s 2019 Planner Sourcing Report, more than 70% of planners organise over 11 events per year, while 10% planners said they organise over 50 events every year. With more work in line, planners expect event experiences that increasingly leverage digital technology to fast track the processes, streamline them by providing creative alternatives and create memorable events. These multi-tasking professionals have increasingly high expectations of what hoteliers should provide.
Here are the three opportunities for venue managers to ease planners’ anxiety and create collaborative partnerships through technology innovation.
1. Virtual Tours
Virtual Reality is truly a game-changer for the entire MICE industry. It promises a great opportunity for hospitality professionals to promote their meeting and event venues before the prospects ever come onsite. The ability to actually experience an event space, without having to physically travel to that place, can save a lot of time and money for the event planners, thereby allowing them to explore more venue spaces. Featuring a 360-degree virtual tour of your property online can offer a magical solution to the event planners and decision-makers to get a feel of the property from the comfort of their offices. Besides, it helps corporate travellers to make more informed decisions with more realistic expectations.
2. Interactive Floor Plans
Providing better ways for event planners to visualise their events at your venue can definitely help you attract more MICE business. When planners come onsite or visit your website to check the event spaces, their first concern is ‘Will this space work for my event?’. You can provide an easy solution to this problem by offering an interactive floor plan and immediately win their hearts. In fact, solutions like Social Tables by Cvent not only make event management easier but also improve event revenue. With Social Tables, you can drive high-value leads by proving your space can accommodate the needs of event planners, and gain a competitive advantage.
3. Room Block Technology
For planners, deciding what size room block to contract can be a hard nut to crack. Combine that with the uncertainty of the delegates who don’t book within the block, and the result is unfilled booking rooms. Planners obviously do not want to be on the hook for those costs. However, you as a responsible hospitality professional can defy such woes and simplify the process for meeting planners by leveraging room block technology solutions like Cvent Passkey. It has become the go-to MICE booking solution for thousands of hotels, meeting planners, and destinations across the globe. With Cvent Passkey, you can exceed your planner’s expectation by enabling them to track their room blocks, room lists, and reservations online with ease. Moreover, you can promote room upgrades, extended stays, and other amenities to MICE guests in a highly professional and targeted manner to generate additional revenue.
Adopting these tech-driven solutions will be highly appreciated by the event planners as it will make their lives much easier thereby saving them a lot of time and effort. Hotels not using these technology solutions should consider it as an investment that will definitely pay off in the long run and potentially lead to increased MICE bookings.
