CONNECTIONS HOUSING

Streamlining room block management for Connections Housing with Passkey

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500K+

reservations and 1M room nights managed in two years

20+

years partnering with Cvent

100+

hotels and 600 subblocks managed for single event

Connections Housing is a third-party agency that manages housing for over 400 annual events. They rely on their long-standing use of Cvent’s Passkey solution for room block management for complex events across markets. They also use other integrated solutions like the Cvent Supplier Network and Event Management platform. Robert Colvin, Chief Operating Officer, notes, “We’ve used Passkey since 2004, and our relationship has evolved with Cvent over the years to become a great partnership.”

hotel reception

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Empowering the industry with event technology 

Over the course of this long-standing relationship, Robert and his team have seen incredible evolutions in event technology. “Managing housing can be a somewhat manual process, and technology can help us with that,” says Robert. Passkey reduces the complexity and challenges of managing room blocks through automated processes that create seamless attendee experiences and streamline communication with hotels. With real-time reporting on room block status for pickup rates, attrition rates, and more, event organizers are always up to date. Passkey also integrates directly with hotel reservation systems to eliminate multiple lists or spreadsheets and saves valuable time on manual processes. 

Over the last few years, the rapid return of in-person events presented a unique challenge for Connections Housing. They found they needed to level-set industry knowledge for an influx of new hospitality professionals. As such, Connections Housing acted as a key partner in helping to onboard and knowledge share about the Passkey solution for professionals who may be new to the industry. “We’re educating them about the tool, and Cvent’s been a great partner in helping us to onboard our events, making sure our hospitality partners know the many capabilities of the tool,” Robert explains. They work together to ensure their hotel partners are able utilize Passkey in a strategic way to provide top level service to their attendees, exhibitors, and customers.

As “doing more with less” is a common theme Robert currently hears from their hotel partners, Passkey provides important opportunities to automate processes and drive internal efficiencies. The room block management solution supports complex requirements while saving valuable man hours. “We use this technology from end-to-end,” Robert insists. Connections Housing not only directly reviews all hotel builds with their hotel partners, but ensures they have access to the tool early in the process so they can confirm everything is set up correctly, from rates to room blocks. 

APPROACH

Driving efficiency through automated room block management with Passkey

The automation capabilities Passkey provides to both the event manager and the hotel partner is key. Robert explains, “Passkey is a great way to automate our processes, particularly with the two-way integration where all we have to do is just have the hotel map to the way we built Passkey.” He notes that this functionality ensures all reservations are automatically downloaded, which he says “takes a lot of labor off of us and creates a lot of efficiencies for our team.” 

This seamless integration allows attendees to register for the event and book their rooms in a single, unified process. The event manager can easily configure their room blocks and availability, attendee types, and corresponding room rates. From there, the integration can be easily configured to activate hotel accommodations and the Passkey integration can be customized to the particulars of one’s needs. 

Innovative technology features for improved housing management 

Another key feature Robert credits as highly valuable is the waitlisting capabilities within Passkey. “With the stronger demand for hotel meetings and hotel rooms, clients are not wanting to assume liability,” Robert explains. This means blocks may be smaller than usual. “So that means we’ve got more demand for the rooms that we actually have contracted,” he adds. The waitlist functionality will automatically alert event managers in the tool so they can track and manage waitlist updates in real time, whether on a case-by-case basis or through an automated process. “This means we can, in essence, oversell the property and then clear the waitlist automatically through Passkey once the hotel confirms additional availability,” Robert notes.

Additional valuable features include the auto block and public block functionality. “The auto block and public block tools are great, and we’ve used them on several occasions very successfully,” says Robert. "For example, for one of our events, Connections Housing contracted and managed over 100 hotels in Passkey with over 600 sub-blocks." These sub-blocks are allocated blocks of rooms for different groups of attendees, such as VIPs, speakers, internal staff, exhibitors, and so on. Public block allows their team to manually review, approve, and fulfill each request to create sub-groups for requesters as they see fit, while auto block offers more automation in terms of functionality. Requesters can submit requests based on live inventory and pre-defined rules, and then sub-blocks are automatically generated to remove additional manual work. 

RESULTS

By using auto block, Connections Housing was able to book rooms and collect credit card payments faster, which resulted in earlier pick up of the rooms. Also by using this tool, it saved their event management team from having to track down payments closer to the start of the event. In fact, with the ability to manage over 600 sub-blocks in the system with reporting as well as additional integrated tools, Connections Housing was able to deliver concise reservation details for over 11,000 booked rooms. In addition, using Passkey in conjunction with the integrated marketing solutions within Cvent’s Event Management platform helped streamline attendee communication, saving valuable time.

LOOKING FORWARD

Pushing boundaries and enhancing experiences through an extended partnership

The value of Passkey as a comprehensive solution is the central reason Connections Housing has maintained their decades-long partnership with Cvent. “We’re completely on board with Passkey and I can’t emphasize enough how much efficiency the two-way integration creates for our teams as well as the hotel,” insists Robert. As he notes, Connections Housing is the largest third-party user of Passkey, with over 500,000+ reservations managed in the last two years alone. “We are basically putting over a million room nights through the system annually” he adds.

Robert notes that it’s important that the product continues to evolve as technology advances. He explains, “Over the years, we’ve had complex needs for the product and we’ve worked closely with Cvent to enhance Passkey to continue to support the industry.” He says the extended partnership has helped to improve the housing experience for their customers and the industry as a whole. “We’re always helping to push the boundaries of the product and it ends in us being able to be successful on behalf of our customers,” he says.

As they look at the upcoming opportunities, Robert is excited to expand their solution set to include new event technology solutions like the Cvent Supplier Network, a venue sourcing network comprising over 300,000 global venues. “We also use the eMarketing tool, which has been helpful for our large events where we do email campaigns to as many as 20,000 attendees at one time,” he adds. By leveraging open APIs through Cvent, Connections Housing is able to integrate other technology platforms with the tool. “Through those APIs, we’re able to integrate with our own technology, which allows us to create an even better experience for our customers,” Robert says.

hotel details
Business meeting shaking hands

As they look forward to the near future, Robert stresses the value and importance of relying on their close partnership with their Cvent team. “We enjoy the team, we enjoy the tool, and it’s just been a great partnership,” he says. “All the Cvent staff we come into contact with are wonderful and they help us be successful.” He adds that the intrinsic value of this relationship and this technology continue to positively impact the business. “Passkey is a great tool for us and it creates efficiencies for our hotel partners as well as us as a user,” he says. “That is the reason we have stayed with the product for years.”

PRODUCTS USED

Connections Housing Thumbnail

GOALS

  • Reduce complexity and challenges of managing room blocks with event tech
  • Automate processes to save time and drive efficiencies for event managers and hotel partners

APPROACH

  • Rely on Cvent's Passkey solution for end-to-end room block management
  • Leverage open APIs to streamline workflows
  • Automate processes with hotel partners using two-way integration
  • Use functionality like auto block to drive manage room block capacities

RESULTS

  • 500K+ reservations managed in two years
  • 1M+ room nights managed annually
  • 20+ year partnership with Cvent

Simplify room block management

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