InterContinental London The O2
InterContinental London – The O2 partnered with Cvent to help simplify and improve group pick-up and profitability, decreasing cancellations and optimising customer experience.
INTRODUCTION
InterContinental London – The O2 is one of the UK’s largest conference hotels. Standing between the Thames and The O2, the hotel is a first option for event planners, which meant having a way to streamline the complex room block management process to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the risk of booking errors was essential.
The luxury hotel added to their impressive worldwide chain when it opened in 2016. Situated just 400m from Greenwich underground station, it’s a mere 15-minute journey from central London. Their two bars, two restaurants, private dining room and afternoon tea lounge makes the venue a great location for large events, as well as dinners for up to 3000 guests. The venue also has 11 different room types and 453 bedrooms.
It contains a 3,100sqm pillar-free ballroom, one of the largest in Europe,and an additional 19 meeting rooms. The venue commonly hosts largeevents of all kinds – from financial, technological and medical to weddings,networking and social events.
THE CHALLENGE
Efficient and profitable management of room nights, however, can be a complex task. Without the right technology, the process can daunt even the most experienced hotelier. InterContinental London – The O2 hold many large events with complicated bedroom requirements. They found their previous method was inflexible, uncustomisable and involved a lot of backand-forth with event planners.
“We tend to get very specific bedroom blocks request when we have to offer rooms for delegates and source crew,” said Revenue Manager Edyta Walczak. “And what our clients often ask for is a booking platform which would cater to all of these requests.” InterContinental needed a technology that would make this difficult, time-consuming
process profitable and efficient.
THE SOLUTION
Not long after opening, InterContinental London – The O2 turned to Cvent Passkey. It gave the hotel an effective way to simplify room block management and enhance collaboration with event planners. “[Cvent Passkey] offers flexibility to the client and gives the planner a little bit more of control on how the bedroom block is picking up and what the take up on the allocation is”.
Passkey is also highly customisable, from branding to payment methods: “From our perspective, we can offer that extra service of customising the ooking site for the guests. So, we create a bespoke, unique landing page specific to an event where we can customise the terms and conditions,payment methods. We can put the company’s logo.”
Not only does it benefit the user experience, but it helps their internal team: “Another key benefit for our internal team is that with the Passkey, we get less calls, fewer emails – that really helps with day-to-day operations.”
With Cvent Passkey, InterContinental London – The O2 saw an uplift in net upsell revenue by 670%, net addon revenue by 150% and total revenue by 1040%.
InterContinental London – The O2 want to focus on driving planners to Cvent Passkey. “I think there are a few opportunities in terms of driving maybe a little bit more to Passkey, convincing our clients that it’s a useful
tool, as some of them still prefer to send us rooming lists. I think there is an opportunity for us to maybe sell it a little bit more. But in terms of the functionalities of the tool, we are very pleased. We will definitely continue to use it.”
