Marriott Vet Heads New Tech Arm
<B>Marriott Vet Heads New Tech Arm</B>
By Chris Davis
Marriott International has introduced a new program that offers buyers a single point of contact for coordinating events that require the use of videoconferencing, Webconferencing or satellite broadcasting to connect attendees in multiple properties worldwide.
Director of EventCom Technologies by Marriott Tom Maguire will lead the venture, securing space in properties and, when necessary, providing each property with the necessary equipment to broadcast content.
Key benefits to buyers include the avoidance of negotiating for meeting space and tech equipment usage with every involved property, as well as centralized billing, Maguire said.
"We'll find available space in hotels and work on all connectivity issues, be it satellite feeds, ISDN lines or, if it's a small event, streaming over the Web," said Maguire, a 16-year Marriott veteran, who previously was senior catering manager at the O'Hare Airport Marriott and held prior positions in technology, event management and food and beverage. "In addition, we can help hotels with already-booked meetings in which the planner would like some assistance beefing up the technology. The goal is to make meetings more dynamic through connectivity. We will act as the conduit, and we'll work in the beginning stages--qualifying a piece of business and giving them the best scenarios."
Pricing for the service is dependent on the lead time required and the rental rates charged for meeting space in involved hotels. Individual properties are not required to accept every entreaty from EventCom and have the option of requiring additional revenue to book, such as F&B service.
Though the increased effectiveness and flexibility of Webconferencing and ISDN-based videoconferencing over traditional videoconferencing has led some buyers to reexamine the technology in lieu of travel (Meetings Today, July 10), Maguire doesn't think EventCom's offerings are designed to replace or cut corporate group and meeting travel. Rather, "this is an enhancement, a way of linking five people in Germany into a meeting here in the United States," Maguire said.
The amount of lead time required to secure available space should be less than six weeks, Maguire said, although it could be significantly shorter as circumstances dictate.
"Lead times depend on the amount of meeting space and tech needed and the level of complexity of the meeting, but it's short term in nature overall," Maguire said. "Pharmaceutical companies, for example, often have only two days after federal approval of a drug to train their salesforces and introduce the product, and that's the timeline we've designed the mechanism to address."
Other industries that EventCom will target include financial services, which hold large investor conferences; consulting, in which buyers are loath to disrupt consultants' billable hours with clients for a meeting; and the tech industry, which is familiar with integrating these capabilities into meetings and events.
The move to establish EventCom illustrates Marriott's belief that multi-property, multi-destination events with broadcast connectivity will increase in a time when both meeting budgets and hotel meeting tech upgrades are in flux (Meetings Today, March 26). "The goal is to leverage business into Marriott hotels and make meetings more dynamic because they're there," Maguire said.