MPI, Tech Firm Match Rooms With Last-Minute Bookings
Meeting Professionals International has signed an exclusive partnership agreement with technology developer Performance Quest International to solve a longstanding problem: matching vacant hotel rooms with planners who have last-minute needs.
Although Performance Quest has been offering this service on its Website since September, it intends to spur activity on the site to get more hotel companies on board with MPI's help.
Performance Quest already is in discussions with all of the major hotel chains-including Hilton, Westin and Marriott-to attain chainwide participation in the program, and expects agreements by the end of May for most of the organizations in question, said Performance Quest executive vice president Peter Shelly. Until then, a Web surfer can expect to see individual Radisson, Doubletree, Hilton and Westin properties, heavily weighted toward resort destinations located in the Southeast, Southwest and Northeast. The service, which is called Hot Dates/Hot Rates, has more than 400 properties listed.
MPI (www.MPIweb.org) hosts a link to the site, which has been refined several times since its launch; the planner also can find the service at www.hotrateshotdates.com. Any requests made on MPI's own Website activates both the servers and search engine at Performance Quest's Scottsdale, Ariz., office, and are transparent to a planner who makes an electronic booking.
A planner e-mails his or her location, meeting size and property requirements and waits to hear from site selection firm Helms/Briscoe-Performance Quest's sister company-or the hotel itself, which promises to respond within 24 hours, free of charge.
The technology firm wanted to give its site a promotional boost while saving MPI development time and money. Rather than reinventing the wheel on its own, MPI asked Performance Quest to be a partner and develop a search engine to drive the short-term Web booking product it wanted to offer.
"When we first announced the rollout of our Website at the World Education Conference in San Francisco, we intended to have this sort of capability," said Dave Dubois, MPI's chief operating officer. "Soon after, we discovered that Performance Quest had already done the job, so we got in touch with them and extended an offer to partner in some form."
Performance Quest hopes gaining users will help add participating hotels to its ranks. "We haven't anticipated much problem in getting hotel participation, although gaining MPI's support will certainly enhance our profile," Shelly said.
Participation from MPI's membership, which numbers more than 14,000 worldwide, could increase both the hits and deals transacted via the tool. Shelly estimated that 250 people are viewing the page daily. Of that group, about 150 actually go in and use the search engine to get details about property availability, and about 20 percent of those indicate that they are interested in contacting a hotel and asking for more information to begin the booking process.