InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn properties will offer meeting planners full integration to all Passkey tools including a customized event-specific hotel reservation website. Through this site, event attendees will be able to make and manage their hotel reservations online. Also, with Passkey, meeting planners will be able to upload rooming lists, automatically link reservation information to IHG hotels and track hotel block pick-up and reservation status through real-time reports that review every facet of the process.
"Utilizing Passkey across our InterContinental and Crowne Plaza brands in the U.S. and Canada will provide meeting planners with consistent and reliable group booking capabilities and help ensure their event attendees enjoy the experience," said Del Ross, vice president, distribution marketing, the Americas, IHG. "Gaining brand loyalty with meeting planners is critical, as meetings and events represent a large part of our business."
With this solution, IHG expects to further streamline the group reservation process, increase meeting planner loyalty and drive incremental revenue from its group reservations.
"As 'The Place to Meet,' Crowne Plaza strives to be the first choice for meeting planners," said Kevin Kowalski, senior vice president, worldwide brand management for Crowne Plaza. "The Passkey technology will allow all of our hotels in the U.S. and Canada to offer a solution that makes event planning and management even easier for meeting planners."
About Passkey:
Passkey (www.passkey.com) is the worldwide leader and recognized industry standard in online group reservations. The Boston-based technology company offers event planners and providers a powerful web-based solution for managing group hotel reservations. The heart of the Passkey system is an innovative online booking engine that lets group attendees make their hotel reservations online in the contracted group block, while allowing event planners and hotels to access real-time reports and event information. Offered as an onDemand solution, Passkey delivers benchmark speed, security and scalability.
The Passkey-enabled global network consists of over 85% of major U.S. Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), as well as thousands of hotels, trade associations, meeting planners and meeting management companies. Passkey investors include Lazard Technology Partners and DRV Investments, LLC.
Notes to Editors:
InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG) of the United Kingdom [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms. IHG owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, over 3,800 hotels and more than 563,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. IHG owns a portfolio of well recognised and respected hotel brands including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites® and Hotel Indigo®, and also manages the world's largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club® Rewards with over 33 million members worldwide.
The company pioneered the travel industry's first collaborative response to environmental issues as founder of the International Hotels and Environment Initiative (IHEI). The IHEI formed the foundations of the Tourism Partnership launched by the International Business Leaders Forum in 2004, of which IHG is still a member today. The environment and local communities remain at the heart of IHG's global corporate responsibility focus.
IHG offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ihg.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards programme at www.priorityclub.com.
For the latest news from IHG, visit our online Press Office at www.ihg.com/media.
