FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2006

Tourisme Montréal offers meeting planners state-of-the-art housing system with Passkey

Montréal, December 12, 2006 – Tourisme Montréal is pleased to announce that it has selected Passkey, the world’s leading online group reservation system, to handle its housing service needs. The new partnership with Passkey, a Boston-based technology company, will allow the organization to offer a 100% Web-based centralized event management system, an invaluable addition to the wide range of event planning tools already offered by the CVB.  

“We are very excited about moving forward with Passkey,” says Charles Lapointe, President and CEO of Tourisme Montréal. “This software tool is already widely-known and used among meeting planners, and will secure Montréal’s position as a city that offers state-of-the-art meeting planning services. Our decision to partner with Passkey dovetails with our strategic planning objectives, which is to distinguish Montréal from its competitors by providing meeting planners with the best possible solutions in the business.” 

The Passkey group reservations management system features advanced online reservation tools and amenities that respond to the different needs of stakeholders; that is, event planners, delegates and hotels. The new tool will allow meeting planners to access the status of their event 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while delegates enjoy the luxury of booking their room in total security, at any time at their convenience. Hotels, for their part, will be able to benefit from a hassle-free reservation process, and will be able to upsell and promote their hotel amenities and services to event delegates prior to their arrival. The wide range of enhanced services supplied by Passkey will allow Tourisme Montréal to guarantee its clients a streamlined and customized booking process, round-the-clock access to reservations as well as pick-up and pace reports generated in real-time, all in a secure environment, and at no cost to them whatsoever.

“Montreal is a wonderful meetings venue for planners and we are very proud to have them join our Passkey-enabled global network,” adds Greg Pesik, President & CEO of Passkey International Inc. “By providing them with Passkey, they are not only gaining a competitive advantage in the market, but definitely increasing their customer satisfactionwhether it be their planners or hotel members.”

Tourisme Montréal’s Convention and Hospitality Services team, which is currently receiving training on all aspects of Passkey’s functionalities, will be ready to offer the Passkey housing system to all multi-hotel conventions as of January 2007.