For Immediate Release
May 21, 2010
With GroupMAX, Marriott seeks to offer its meeting planners and guests best-in-class service, while boosting revenues at its Innovation Network hotels
Washington, DC —
Marriott International (NYSE:MAR) and Passkey will deploy Passkey’s GroupMAX online group reservations system across its Innovention Network of select Marriott, JW Marriott and Renaissance hotels and resorts, the largest collection of meetings and conventions properties within any hotel chain.
The Marriott Innovention Network is a collection of over 60 world class, integrated hotels and resorts that provide their guests the ultimate meeting experience by applying a proven process to partner with planners to create energizing and innovative meetings. This includes offering their event planners and guests a seamless hotel booking experience while mitigating their attrition risk and optimizing their contracted hotel block. To accomplish these goals, it was clear that Passkey’s GroupMAX would be a critical element of its plan.
According to Todd Sherstad, Director, Innovention Network,
“Meeting planners across our hotels continue to raise the bar in terms of their expectations for a consistent, secure, and personalized group booking capability. Meanwhile, our network of hotels has a strategic goal to grow their group revenues and room night business. Passkey’s GroupMAX is the best application we identified with advanced group capabilities for hotels to offer group guests upgrades, customized promotions, and targeted messaging about their event. This is essential for our hotels to improve their group performance, whether in terms of revenues, profits or guest and planner satisfaction.”
With Passkey’s GroupMAX system, meeting planners holding their events at a Marriott Innovention Network property will be able to offer their event guests a seamless online hotel booking experience via customized event booking pages, which let guests book the room of their choice anytime, while allowing planners to connect their event registration system directly to hotel reservations. This ensures maximum “within-the-block” bookings while providing guests a one-stop-shop registration to reservations process.
Importantly, group guests can select from multiple room options and upgrades that are not traditionally offered in the course of making a group reservation, offering them more choices while providing these Marriott properties an opportunity to have group guests enjoy these special room types in addition to the individual business or leisure guests.
In addition, with GroupMAX, meeting planners will be able to track their event performance using tools such as SmartAlerts™ automatic email alerts, real-time event dashboards and secure online room list management. These tools let planners track and manage their event online in real-time, helping them optimize their event housing commitments while mitigating data security and attrition risks.
In addition to the benefits offered to meeting planners, participating Marriott hotels will be able to use Passkey’s Group Campaigns toolset to offer highly targeted room upgrade, extended stay and amenity offers to its group guests, before, during and after each event. These tools, in addition to Passkey’s industry-first secure room list utility, QuickLists, allow Marriott Innovention Network hotels to optimize their group rates, occupancy and incremental revenue potential, often resulting in increased group revenue per group room night. Luis Lamar, VP Convention & Resort Sales Americas framed the Passkey deployment this way,
“Passkey had been deployed at a number of our hotels for many years, but this initiative occurred because GroupMAX is now a win-win-win for our hotels, our meeting planners, and our guests. Hotels have a way to optimize group revenues while providing guests with a full breadth of room and amenity options. And meeting planners are provided with the industry’s leading tools to manage reservations, protect their attendees’ data, and fight attrition.”
The agreement extends Marriott’s partnership with Passkey to up to 60 hotels and 42,000 rooms. Meeting planners will be able to use Passkey’s GroupMAX tools at any participating Innovention Network hotel in North America, Hawaii and the Caribbean.
Click on the following link to learn more about the 60 Innovention Network Hotels & Resorts - www.innoventionnetwork.com.