ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS
Meeting Venues Need To Start Embracing the Web
New Rendezvous Clients in the Conference Space
NFS Boosts its Marketing Strategy for the Conference Sector
Welcome to an exciting issue of Venue Matters.
As we come out of a very difficult economic environment, we hope the topics in this issue will help you gain a persepective on some of the key developments in the industry relevant to your success.
Over the last six months NFS have signed a number of new clients, and we are delighted to welcome the
RSA, King’s House Conference Centre and The Christian Conference Trust to our growing venue portfolio.
We also have exciting plans to develop the business in the venue market, helped by the industry experience of
Charles Blowfield – a new addition to the the management team at NFS.
I hope you enjoy reading our news roundup and welcome your feedback and suggestions for future topics.
Luis Desouza, Managing Director of NFS Hospitality.
luis@nfs-hospitality.com
If anyone knows about the success of booking meeting rooms online, it’s Ciaran Delaney, Founder of Meetingsbooker.com, one of the fastest growing online meetings portals in Europe. Exclusively for Venue Matters, he tells us why the meetings market is moving increasingly online, and how venues can go about this successfully.
Online Presence Drives Increased Revenues for Meetings Market
Traditionally, conference venues and corporate hotels have not promoted their meeting space online as effectively as their accommodation. Why is this? There are a number of contributing factors.
Selling meeting rooms online is more complicated than selling bedrooms; clients can pay a delegate rate or room hire rate, which includes food and beverage and also equipment. However, these are all business issues which can be overcome by technology.
Changing Attitudes in the Small Meetings Sector
The main reason for a lack of acceptance of online technology to transact meeting room bookings has been a lack of interest from the majority of sales managers. In many ways this is justified as business traditionally came through the telephone or email, so there was no need to develop an online strategy. However, in the current economic climate this is changing, as lead times are shorter and clients want a quicker response. This is particularly so for the small meeting space, where attitudes have changed in recent years and more and more venues are seeing the benefits of promoting an online system to book meeting rooms.
NFS recently partnered with Meetingsbooker.com, who provide two software systems that enable venues to sell their meeting space online; the key success factor for these systems being flexibility.
Venue clients are offered various options, including:
– Selection of a live booking engine or an instant quote model
– Ability to set the timeframe users can book through – e.g. 3 months or 12 months
– Full product range including meeting space, food and beverage and equipment can be added to the system
Meetingsbooker.com software is now in place on some of Europe’s top hotel brand websites, including Holiday Inn, Park Plaza and Clarion, as well as independent chains such as Bewley’s Hotels. In all cases the system is achieving its goal of delivering meeting room bookings. Properties can also promote their meeting space on www.meetingsbooker.com.
Five Top Tips for Successful Meetings
1) CLIENTS LIKE OPTIONS
Needless to say it’s important to provide detailed information on your website covering conference and meeting space size as well as meeting packages. From a fulfilment perspective, currently most hotels have an RFP form which takes time for the client to complete, and they also have to wait for a package. Venues should provide their clients with three options, namely: RFP, Booking or Instant Quote, as well as live chat. If properly managed, this provides your client with choice, and doesn’t force them down any particular path.
2) YIELD MEETING SPACE
Most hotels and conference venues don’t regularly yield their meeting space. Instead the traditional January and August special offers are presented. Why is this? Surely meeting rooms deserve the same level of revenue management as bedrooms? The basic principles of supply and demand still apply. With effective software and a website, venues can apply special offers for certain meeting rooms over different time periods, for example having strong offers on quieter weekdays such as Mondays and Fridays, which helps maximise their revenue.
3) REWARD
In the current, competitive marketplace, conference hotels and meeting venues need to keep the clients they have and reward them for their business. By offering bookers rewards, venues can develop loyalty without necessarily slashing their rates. Many Meetingbooker.com clients implement Meetingbooker Rewards which work particularly well for hotel chains who can offer accommodation vouchers. These can be easily set up and presented online.
4) PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES
Traditionally many venues take a small number of pictures of their meeting space. In fairness if you have fifteen meeting rooms the photography costs can grow, however, it is money well spent as bookers want to see a picture of the meeting or conference room they are booking. The picture should be professional and also realistic; don’t include flowers and additional items that are not commonly found in your meeting rooms. It is vital to add these images to your website using a simply image photo gallery.
5) VIDEO
Online video is quickly becoming a key strategic marketing channel in travel and this is no different for the meetings market. The costs for creating a simple, professional video of your meeting space has dropped considerably and is now very reasonable. A good meeting room video can be added to your website, email signatures and email marketing campaigns. You can also post videos on youtube and a number of channels including www.meetingroomvideos.com.
Still Undecided?
By embracing online meeting room bookings, your venue will be in a position to drive bookings through your website, particularly for the smaller meeting space. This additional revenue stream can compliment your call centre or trade sales. It will also save you time responding to RFPs for small groups, allowing you to spend more time winning larger conference business. By offering online bookings you are also providing a 24-hour service, which puts your clients first and should be complimented by a good RFP and live chat mechanism.
Designed with commercial and unique venues in mind, Rendezvous Events is fully integrated scheduling
software for conference management, meeting management, catering and resources. The technology helps to increase client satisfaction, enable successful and streamlined events, and also reduce costs. Rendezvous is currently being used by a range of commercial and unique venues across the UK and globally, We’ve selected a few examples of our UK and South African clients who are already seeing great benefits and a good return on their investment.
Royal Society of Arts, a Leading London Venue, selects Rendezvous for Conference & Banqueting Management
The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) is a leading UK cultural facility located in the heart of London, with over 27,000 members. It is also one of London’s largest event venues, with one of the most prominent public events programmes in the UK, hosting over 150 free lectures, talks, screenings and debates each year.
Recently the RSA selected Rendezvous Events to help them run their busy events business, replacing a legacy system used over many years.
Sarah Carr, Events Manager at the RSA, comments: “Our previous Conference & Banqueting system was used in a very limited way and we look forward to the Rendezvous solution bringing together all aspects of our meetings and events business, from enquiry handling through to the booking of events, including billing.”
She continues: “By implementing a modern, browser-based event management system used by many leading London venues, we hope to deliver better customer services as well as improve internal processes in all areas of our meetings business. We find Rendezvous simple to use, with a conference-user specific User Interface. We plan to integrate Rendezvous with other systems used by the RSA.”
To read the full article, please click here.
Rendezvous SaaS Drives Expansion of Growing UK Conference Centre
King’s House is the central meeting place and conference centre of King’s Church, in Manchester. The venue offers nine meeting and conference rooms as well as professional AV, IT and PA equipment and various catering options. The business started targeting the conference market from early 2005. "We started small and have always sought to grow at a sustainable and manageable rate," comments Graham Aves, Director of King’s House Conference Centre. "Between 2005 and 2010, our turnover has gone from £30,000 to £330,000."
During these five years, the business was using a completely manual system that involved a Microsoft Outlook calendar and Microsoft Excel. This was an incredibly time-consuming process, and prone to errors.
Conference Management Technology to Expand with the Business
King’s House first started looking at introducing new conference management software in 2008, because they foresaw that as they continued to grow, the potential for mistakes and wasted admin time would grow massively.
A decision was made and in May 2010 King’s House purchased Rendezvous SaaS, our fully integrated, hosted Conference and Banqueting solution. Since implementation, the business has already noticed a huge reduction in admin time associated with the booking process, which will allow much more time for business development and targeting potential new customers.
Rendezvous SaaS Expected to Help Sales Grow
"My initial, positive feelings about Rendezvous following the demo have been confirmed," Graham concludes. "I’m really glad we took the plunge and look forward to our sales continuing to grow. I would highly recommend NFS Rendezvous to anyone looking for a good conference management system."
To read the full article, please click here.
Leading Christian Centre Group Adopts Rendezvous for Accommodation and Meeting Bookings Across Three Conference Centres
The Christian Conference Trust (CCT) operates The Hayes, High Leigh and Belsey Bridge Conference Centres and aims to provide an exceptional welcome to Christian, charitable and business conferences throughout the year.
Moving Away from a Paper-Based System
Prior to the implementation of Rendezvous Events in 2009, all CCT venues were using a paper-based diary and a combination of Word and Excel to deal with new enquiries, bookings, administration and billing.
As CCT’s market changed from single, larger events to having to manage multiple events and clients on a single day, each with their own individual requirements, it became obvious that the most efficient way to deal with the booking process was to have a system with full integration between the client database and the booking process. Moving to a computer-based diary management solution across multiple sites would offer great benefits to both the staff and the clients of the venue.
So the Search for an Integrated Solution Began
Grant Farrant, Business Development Manager at CCT, started to investigate which solutions were available, including the consideration of developing a customised solution for the Group. "We engaged with NFS and fortunately both parties were able to see the benefit of undertaking some development work to provide the combination of meeting space, restaurant and bedroom functionality that would work for a Christian Centre," he comments.
After six months of a challenging and exciting development program, CCT created a solution that would work for them and also many other Christian Centres.
The Value of Rendezvous to CCT
Across the three Centres, CCT has over 530 bedrooms and over 75 function rooms. The Rendezvous platform has enabled these resources to be effectively managed so that the user can easily see dining space, bedroom availability and meeting room availability before taking a booking.
"With a client database of over 2,000 organisations and bookings being taken up to five years in advance, it is vital to have an effective management platform," notes Grant. "The Rendezvous package achieves this by integrating dining, bedroom and meeting room management within one product – contact management being at the heart."
To read the full article, please click here.
Rendezvous Proving Successful in South African Conference Centre
Bytes Technology Group is a major South African information and communications software company serving the health and banking sectors. The Bytes Technology Group Conference Centre, which features an impressive 300-seater auditorium equipped with state-of-the art audio and presentation equipment, is used by companies within the Group and also extensively by meeting and events planners looking for a quality, four-star venue.
The Johannesburg venue has been using Rendezvous since 2006, and according to Marlene Haig, General Manager of the conference centre: “Once we started using the software, we highlighted certain areas that we wanted to be further tailor-made to suit our requirements. What was pleasing about NFS’s training is that they were prepared to spend as much time as necessary with each user, until everyone had mastered the programme. Another significant plus factor was that NFS accommodated all new staff who joined soon after the installation and initial training had been completed.”
Rendezvous has been developed using technology able to fundamentally change the booking process for meeting rooms, catering, services and IT equipment. As a browser based application with full integration to Outlook, the solution opens up limitless possibilities to search for room availability.
“The implementation of the user-friendly Rendezvous software made an enormous difference and really enhanced the running of our business,” continues Marlene.
“It’s important that whenever a software glitch or problem occurs, that one has access to first-class service and support … and we are happy to report that we have always enjoyed this from NFS. They are customer-focused and driven, and I have no hesitation in recommending them to other prospective clients.”
NFS Hires Charles Blowfield Associates to Bring New Industry Experience to the Management Team
Over the last five years, NFS Hospitality have expanded their presence in the Meetings & Events market in the UK and internationally and now work with leading venues around the world.
We are delighted to welcome Charles Blowfield to our management team, whose appointment will support the efforts we make to grow our hotel and venue business. A strong industry perspective plays a key role in our strategy for growth.
Charles Blowfield is a senior industry figure who has been running his business consultancy for over six years, serving the hospitality sector at large, including conferences and meetings. Prior to this he spent twenty years in hotel management and then a further ten years as Commercial Director for the Meetings Industry Association – the largest and fastest growing UK trade association for the meetings industry.
Blowfield hopes to effectively communicate to hotels, hotel chains and conference venue operators the clear benefits of using NFS Hospitality’s integrated software solutions.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to personally work alongside the NFS team,” he comments. “I hope to widen their exposure and scope to the conference sector, based on my knowledge and experience in this market. Rendezvous offers great potential for these types of businesses, as the software suite is developed by NFS for the hotel and venue market. Their hosted solution means that even small venues can benefit from an advanced scheduling solution.”
Luis Desouza, Managing Director of NFS, says: “We are an important player in the market and our technology is being used by some major venues and hotels in the industry. I am very happy to now have some great experience on board which we can channel into being moreresponsive to the needs of the market in our future developments. It is with great pleasure that I welcome Charles, and I value his input as we continue to develop our technology for meetings, venues and hotels.”
Places Filling Fast for New Seminar & Networking Event
Given the many changes in our Rendezvous offering in the recent past, and with more features being added constantly, this year NFS is hosting a Rendezvous User Forum in London, where it hopes to present some of these changes and also engage in discussion about how future features would benefit our corporate and commercial clients’ businesses.
The Agenda
- Rendezvous Product Update
- Sales and Marketing
- Roadmap and Discussion of Development Priorities
- Guest Speakers: Ciaran Delaney, Founder of Meetingsbooker.com, presenting: How to Maximise Venue Bookings through Online Booking Portals, and Steve Mills, MD of MAX Marketing Ltd
- Drinks and Canapés
Shyam Bharadwaj, Client Relations Executive at NFS, says, “The response to the Commercial event has been overwhelming. We have many exciting developments planned for the future and we look forward to sharing these ideas with our users, and hearing their feedback…”
To find out more about this event, and to reserve your place, please contact Shyam on shyam@nfs-hospitality.com.
We look forward to seeing you there.
For more information about how our solution can help your business, please contact us at
info@myrendezvous.net today, or visit www.nfs-hospitality.com / www.myrendezvous.net
