Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) is a leading Indian organisation that aims to shape the future of Indian tourism industry through networking and education. Its flagship event – also called Global Panorama Showcase – is a business meeting point for leading tourism service providers from India and overseas. The main objective of GPS is to facilitate connections between suppliers from across the globe, and agents and buyers from Tier II & Tier III Indian cities. Through its events, GPS aims to expand its reach to tourism professionals from all states and union territories in India.
“We have come a long way [since our first event]. With the number of increased events, and the number of attendees increased at each of the events, we have seen our revenue grow by almost 8 times. Cvent has got a major role to play in it!”
When the GPS team first started with their Nagpur event in 2013, they were managing their event registration process manually through their basic in-house online tool. With around 80% of attendees not pre-registering, attendance had to be captured through visiting cards at the entry gates on the day of the event. This created a lot of uncertainty for the team, resulting in overbookings and incorrect allocation of rooms.
The team also found that exhibitors were incurring heavy cost in printing the promotional material. This not only led to increased paper usage but also affected the event experience for buyers, who had to lug around stacks of brochures with them throughout the event. The team also struggled to plan for future events, as they had to manually collate multiple excel files just to analyse attendee data.
Overall, it was a tedious and tiresome experience for both the attendees and the GPS team, which was expending considerable manpower on manual processes to manage the event. In 2016 when GPS was expanding to four cities, the team decided to replace their in-house tool & manual processes as it was not capable of handling the complexities that would result from the increase in events. GPS realised it was time to look for a solution that could integrate and streamline its entire event planning process.
Automation & Apps
GPS had already heard about Cvent at a few trade shows. After researching a bit more about the platform, the team realised Cvent was exactly the solution they had been looking for & they decided to get the platform on board.
The scope and scale offered by the new platform allowed GPS to think beyond the ordinary and focus on efficiency and scale. They could now easily create website and email templates for their event, which allowed them to automate registration and promotion. The GPS team was also able to create a common template for all their events using the event duplication and custom-built template features. In addition, event logistics and reporting became much simpler than before. “We used the OnArrival app to check in all our attendees at the entry and for all the sessions. This allowed us to understand who turned up, which sessions attendees were attending, what they were liking and their overall journey at the GPS event,” says Executive Director Tanushka Kaur Anand. All this data helped them plan and forecast for future events in a better way, and ultimately drive engagement and create richer face-to-face experiences.
GPS decided to leverage Cvent’s end-to-end event app solution to build a mobile app that allowed buyers and sellers to connect before and during the event. “The app was the first of its kind and created a wave in the Indian travel industry,” says Managing Director Harmandeep Singh Anand. The app not only allowed attendees to access event related info and network with peers, but also helped them book appointments with sponsors, exchange e-cards, generate leads, and rate buyers, exhibitors and the overall event. It also helped resolve the overbooking problem, as around 80-85% of the attendees began to use the app to pre-register.
“With the [Cvent] system in place, we’re able to understand how many buyers and sellers have turned up, how many meetings took place and we also get the attendee feedback through the app. This is critical data, which helps us do better forecasting and planning for our future events.”
Showcasing Spectacular Results
GPS started its partnership with Cvent with a four-city event, which today has expanded to 14 events across the globe. With less stress and manual load to handle, GPS has seen a 600% increase in efficiency, which has consequently allowed it to take on more events annually without expanding its core team of 8 people. “Without the Cvent system in place, we would have probably required more than 50 people to run the show,” states Rishiraj Singh Anand, Joint Managing Director. The team’s efficiency was also aided by Cvent’s client services team, which adeptly handled any problems or roadblocks and provided a satisfactory resolution for 95% of the cases.
GPS has seen its total attendee count surge from 200 to 10,600 – a 50X jump in six years. “We have come a long way. With the number of increased events, and the number of attendees increased at each of the events, we have seen our revenue grow by almost 8 times,” says Harmandeep. To this Tanushka adds, “We have also seen around 90% reduction in paper usage, which earlier used to cost our exhibitors approximately $70,000 - $80,000 on printing and transportation. Now lower cost means more ROI for our exhibitors, which is why they come back with more enthusiasm to our next event.”
But the most important value that Cvent provided has been its role in establishing GPS as a leading player in the industry, by driving engagement and boosting the GPS event’s visibility in the travel and tourism community.
