Online Attendee Registration Apps. Continue To Advance

When meetings technology was still in its infancy several years ago, the conventional wisdom held that corporate planners would gravitate to more robust applications with higher capabilities as they grew more comfortable with technological concepts. However, planners' tech usage has not completely, or at least consistently, matured in this manner, with a great disparity between tech-savvy planners and low-tech ones. One application in particular has grown quickly, though, and has been widely implemented: online attendee registration.

To accommodate many planners' needs to register attendees online, two software companies have broadened their offerings to combine desktop applications with online registration. Oakland, N.J.-based Isis Corp. has combined its Gold System package with its GoldReg online application for a few years now, but Certain Software of San Francisco joined the fray in December, when it purchased Register123.

"We've seen planners quickly understand the value of online registration, because it makes registration quicker and more accurate with less work involved," said Vanessa Vlay, Certain chief marketing officer. "People haven't necessarily taken to other meeting ASPs, like automatic RFP sites or site search. They were sold as timesavers and methods to get better hotel rates, but neither was necessarily true. People didn't buy in, but we think online registration actually does save time and money."

Part of the reason other Internet applications have not been fully embraced by the industry lies with data-ownership concerns, the suppliers said. "Without discounting the power of the Internet, I think more people have realized that data floats with an ASP," said Charles Lohr, Isis Corp. director of sales. "They don't own the server, and they're not sure what happens if the server goes down or the company goes out of business." Given GoldReg's compatibility with Isis' Gold software package, planners are able to house registration data on their own servers. Lohr said Isis employs outside technology consultants to work with new customers to help ease implementation.

"We still see interest in desktop, partly because there's not a high comfort level with ASPs," said Vlay, who was a meeting planner with Sun Microsystems and Maritz. "People want their data on their servers or desktops. A full conversion of the industry to ASP is probably three to five years away."

Some analysts, however, said concerns about data ownership as it relates to the Internet will ease as familiarity increases. "Data ownership will not be as much of an issue, although still quite significant to many organizations, as the security of data warehousing becomes more widely known," said meetings technology consultant Corbin Ball, president of Bellingham, Wash.-based Corbin Ball Associates. "The ASP model is strong. The biggest challenge is that there are several dozen online registration companies vying for the space. Admittedly, it is a big pie, but you will see all sorts of variations offered in pricing, services, specializations and features—and some very stiff competition."

Online registration and desktop software hybrids aren't the only combined applications to have hit the market: Internet companies SeeUthere and GetThere DirectMeetings independently have created applications that permit online air booking at the point of registration.

Analysts said this envelope will be pushed further. "Planners want technology to eliminate the inefficiencies in their operations," said Jeff Rasco, who is a meetings technology consultant based in Wimberley, Texas, and also senior vice president at JRDaggett & Associates. "Online registration was first, and more seamless integration in air, housing, car rentals and other registration activities is critical to the success of these meeting and attendee management systems. With the advances in data management technologies, this is not a whether, but a when." Rasco said he wouldn't be surprised to see these applications housed on client servers to ease security concerns.

"One-stop shopping for registration, housing and fully integrated travel is great," Ball added. "This is a very challenging task, but several companies are quickly closing the gap here. Online registration has hit critical mass, with more planners using than not. As they continue to become more comfortable with the process, other online technology opens up, including meeting consolidation, abstract and session management and exhibition management."

Isis, Lohr said, is hopeful of forming a partnership with at least one online booking provider to permit attendee air booking at the point of meeting registration. Currently, only SeeUthere and GetThere DirectMeetings have released that capability.

That type of partnering would be a new frontier for Isis, which traditionally developed its products internally, including Gold, GoldReg and its interface between Gold and three global distribution systems—Sabre, Apollo and Amadeus.

Certain Software currently is working on its new Meeting Planner Plus software package, which is a more robust version of its Event Planner Plus application with online registration capability. The creation of the new package, Vlay said, was aided by the fact that Certain bought, instead of partnered with, a registration piece. "We knew we had to incorporate online registration into our software," Vlay said. "We looked to start from scratch, but that would have taken too long. For six months we tried to form a partnership with an online registration company, but we would have lost a lot of control, so we decided to acquire."