Bizly, a sourcing platform for small meetings venues, soon
will announce the close of a fundraising round, according to CEO Ron Shah, and
among the investors that have bought in is Convene. The meetings venue operator's
spaces also will become the first Bizly listings that are not hotels or
restaurants.
Convene & Bizly Each Diversify into Short-Term Workspaces
Convene's 10th New York property opened on Tuesday with a first
for the meetings venue provider. Short-term-lease workspaces are now on offer,
and Convene itself has moved into some of its own office suites in the new
location, at 101 Greenwich St. in Manhattan's Financial District. The flexible
workspaces' capacities range from 10 to 100. Similar spaces will open at
Convene's Philadelphia and Los Angeles locations in the coming months. A
spokesperson told BTN the company has been fielding requests for such spaces,
especially in concert with multiday meetings.
"Much like Convene, we've seen a spike in
demand and requests for workspace solutions for when people are offsite,"
said Ron Shah, CEO of Bizly, which offers a sourcing platform for small
meetings venues. Travel managers, procurement pros and meeting managers may not
be responsible for workspace arrangements, he said, but "they end up
having to figure out how to help the employees." Thus Bizly, too, plans to
add a workspace category to its marketplace in the near future.
Bizly is on track to offer 12,000 meeting venues by the
second quarter, which is when the companies aim to have Convene listings up. Convene
operates 10 locations in New York, including one at 101 Greenwich Street that opened
Tuesday; three in Philadelphia and one each in Boston and Washington, D.C.
A space in Downtown Los Angeles will open in March and
another in April. A Convene spokesperson said the company will open multiple
locations in Chicago in the fourth quarter of 2018 and first quarter of 2019,
and a spot in Chicago's Willis Tower, which is under renovation, will open in
2020. Meanwhile, Convene is looking at London and other key U.S. markets like
Houston and San Francisco for 2019.
What They'll Do
Together
Convene's listings won't be prioritized in Bizly's display,
Shah said, but the listings may be "differentiated" to "demonstrate
how awesome the Convene spaces are." He explained, "We may experiment
together to come up with interesting ideas for how to show the spaces
differently on [Convene's] pages." They also plan to collaborate on
distribution strategies. Convene can pilot the ideas at will on Bizly's platform,
and Bizly can apply the concepts and lessons learned to the rest of its
marketplace.
Alternative to Hotels
The fact that Convene's meeting spots are not hotel offerings
will benefit meeting planners, Shah said. "Having a platform where they
can easily shop and compare across brands is becoming increasingly
important," he said, now that Marriott International has decreased
the commission rate it pays for meeting space bookings in the U.S. and
Canada. Many meetings management programs use those commissions to offset their
costs, and multiple clients have told him, "Hey, I want to de-prioritize
or even remove Marriott from my preferred list."