Passkey CEO Seeks Partnerships
The new CEO of group housing technology provider Passkey Inc. said the company plans to expand its reach next year, including possibly creating a partnership to offer meeting attendees travel services outside the scope of a specific event.
Greg Pesik, who was named CEO in October, replacing Roger Paradis, who became executive chairman of the board, said Passkey could form an alliance with a distribution entity to allow attendees to extend their stays at a meeting to incorporate some leisure time, while still allowing hotels to manage that room as part of the group block during the event.
To do this, and to offer full traveler itineraries, another Pesik goal, Passkey would need to align with a distribution channel or a self-booking tool with full access to global distribution systems. Passkey has garnered significant GDS investment, raising more than $14 million from Sabre, Galileo and Apollo earlier this year. Though nothing yet has been developed, a partnership with a GDS or online booking tool would help Passkey reach that goal, Pesik said. "That certainly may be a way to skin that cat," Pesik said. "Portal connectivity to the necessary inventory would make that kind of transaction possible. We want this to be more than a logo on our Web site."
The move would continue to expand the reach of Passkey. The company licenses its group housing management software primarily to CVBs and hotels, giving them and meeting planners a shared Internet database of real-time group block inventory. Passkey this year offered Hotel Direct, a single-property version of its citywide group reservation product, that also allows corporate buyers to ensure that attendees are booking into the room block at the negotiated rate. "We're going to nurture and grow that core business," Pesik said. "We've been able to navigate challenges in streaming data between hotel property management systems and CRSs." In addition, Pesik hopes to begin a European expansion of Passkey services, targeting convention and exposition centers.
Similar to most industry Internet companies, Passkey is not yet profitable. The company has increased its revenue, secured a steady stream of $5 per-transaction fees from hotels for reservation processing and negotiated monthly and annual deals, regardless of the number of transactions processed, to offer suppliers less cumbersome reconciliation and more precise budget forecasting.
Pesik comes to Quincy, Mass.-based Passkey from Manugistics Inc. of Rockville, Md., where he served as group vice president of transport, travel and hospitality for the software manufacturing company. Pesik joined Manugistics when the company bought previous employer Talus Solutions, which developed revenue management software for several industries, including hotels, airlines and rental cars.
Pesik's appointment last month makes Passkey the second meetings tech firm in as many months to name a new CEO, as B-there.com appointed Christine Berthet its CEO in September.