With hotels awash in
group requests for proposals, organizers of smaller events are less likely to
garner a quick response. A new small meetings booking tool called Groupize aims
to fill that gap.
In beta since February,
Groupize lets users search hotel rates for events that require up to 25 guest rooms.
The tool is not exclusively for corporate use, but Groupize president and CEO
Charles de Gaspe Beaubien estimates the segment is a potentially lucrative
target for his business.
"On the corporate
side, time is money," said de Gaspe Beaubien, who previously held
executive roles on the leisure travel side before serving as senior vice
president of business development for the now-defunct rail IT services provider
Wandrian. "A lot of these planners have to be able to book it and sign on
their rates right away, so it's a good market for us."
Event planners using
Groupize select their destination city, dates, number of guests and number of
rooms, and the tool returns available rates matching the criteria. From there,
the planner can filter results by properties with meeting space or by such
amenities as free breakfast and Wi-Fi. Bookings are guaranteed by a credit
card, and travelers then can claim rooms or make any necessary modifications to
the bookings.
De Gaspe Beaubien said
Groupize was inspired by the proliferation of third-party RFP providers for
group events, through which a planner can fill out one form and send an RFP to
dozens of hotels. Because hotels have to dedicate more resources to these requests, smaller events are falling off of their radar screens, he said.
While several corporate
booking tools can perform similar functions, smaller travel programs not using
the major technology suppliers or agencies have fewer resources.
"It can be
difficult to get a hold of managers to get rates and check inventory," de
Gaspe Beaubien said. "Hotels are being inundated with unqualified RFPs and
don't have time to answer all of them, and [smaller groups] are not what they
want the limited resources on the sales manager side to focus on."
With the technology in
place, Groupize now is concentrating on building inventory by striking deals
with hotel chains to access their preferred group rates. The company recently
signed an agreement with Wyndham Hotel Group, and also is in negotiations with
various central reservation systems to access their special negotiated rates, de
Gaspe Beaubien said.
In June, Groupize
announced a partnership with TravelClick to access hotels via global
distribution system connectivity, which TravelClick executive vice president of
reservations solutions Jonathan Cherins said would "revolutionize the group
booking process."
Groupize also recently
introduced a white-label technology for hotels to use on their own websites.
Hotels also can use it to create a group dashboard for planners to collaborate
and manage their events.
"Quite a few hotels
are now revisiting their groups strategy, so the timing is perfect," de
Gaspe Beaubien said. "Hotels already have the traffic, which allows us to
be successful just by supplying the technology to that model."