The incorporation of Passkey's GroupMax booking technology into Lanyon's Smart Events Cloud will allow the hospitality and meetings technology provider to offer a "ubiquitous platform" that enables integrated management of meetings and hotel room blocks, Lanyon officials said Thursday.
Lanyon, which this week acquired Passkey for an undisclosed sum, plans to integrate GroupMax into its cloud offering during the next year, said Lanyon president JR Sherman. Lanyon's Smart Events Cloud, launched last year before Lanyon merged with The Active Network's Business Solutions division, provides cloud-based strategic meetings management and event marketing solutions.
"Passkey is a great fit for our strategy," Sherman said. "We currently completed and released phase two of our Smart Events Cloud. This includes the coming together of SMM tools, marketing and engagement tools, and everything associated with our conference platform."
Passkey, one of the few meetings technology suppliers born during the late 1990s boom that until now remained a standalone company, had carved an industry niche in group attendee reservation management. Passkey's tools will enable Lanyon to consolidate the amount of platforms utilized, Sherman said, creating a "ubiquitous platform" that's easy to use and gives meeting managers one place to go to manage attendee room blocks and registration systems.
GroupMax pricing "for the foreseeable future is staying the same," Sherman said, but noted that once the product is fully rolled into the Smart Events Cloud, pricing may change.
The company also plans to maintain Passkey's office in Waltham, Mass. "There are no plans for any cuts," Sherman said. "There may be changes down the line at the executive level, but our goal is to leverage all of Passkey's talent."