HELSINKI, FINLAND – MeetingPackage and Davinci Meeting Rooms have launched their integrated solution, meaning more than 5000 new Davinci meeting and event spaces across the USA and beyond are now available through all MeetingPackage distribution partners. This announcement comes hot on the heels of the recent launch of the new M&E CWT easy meetings platform by the global travel management company, a solution which will include Davinci’s global portfolio of venues.
MeetingPackage, a technology provider for hotels and meeting venues, announced the signing of a new partnership to support Davinci venues back in June this year. Today’s announcement marks the first time that venue finders, corporate meetings planners and Travel Management Companies can access live pricing, availability and services for Davinci Meeting Rooms and will help support the strong growth the company has been experiencing in recent years as the corporate trend for virtual offices, remote working and dispersed teams continues to boom.
The present public health crisis has certainly increased the need for low touch booking solutions saving customers time while avoiding the risk of communicating face to face with operational staff already occupied ensuring the cleanliness and safety of their locations.
Saskia Gentil, VP Global Sales and Marketing at CWT M&E, one of the largest distribution partners in MeetingPackage’s global distribution network commented on the news, “While it’s been a tough time for the corporate travel sector, the need to book offsite meeting rooms in real-time has been a growing demand from our corporate bookers for some time. Online booking for M&E gives us three key things: speed, transparency and efficiency. Speed because we can get fast or instant responses to enquiries; transparency because we can see rates and availability live on the screen, and efficiency because the platform records all the detail and communication related to the enquiry or booking in one place. Davinci’s inventory will help support the rollout of our CWT easy meetings platform to corporates across the USA, the first TMC platform to offer global customers an online tool for real-time planning and booking of meeting rooms. We’re happy to be working with MeetingPackage in pursuit of finally bringing the M&E booking process online.”
MeetingPackage has carved out a unique market position acting as an integration layer between global meeting room inventory and customer facing platforms. Distribution channels can reach an ever-growing inventory of meeting rooms across the globe by leveraging MeetingPackage’s innovative software solutions. Venues maintain control over their pricing, policies and distribution strategy and all this is achieved with limited integration efforts.
Commenting on today’s launch, Joonas Ahola, CEO of MeetingPackage said, “It’s great to see this solution up and running just a few months after announcing this partnership. Despite the current disruption to businesses everywhere, we’re thinking ahead and planning for the future. As we emerge from the fog, I’m confident we’re going to see a more digital world when it comes to the organization of physical meetings. Partnerships we’ve created with the likes of CWT demonstrate how our software is going to be crucial to many businesses to make sure they can meet the expectations from clients in the new normal. What we’ve built with Davinci Meeting Rooms shows that they too subscribe to this notion and together we will make our businesses stronger as the economy recovers.”
Martin Senn, CEO of Davinci Virtual Office Solutions commented, “We are excited to announce the completion of our integration with MeetingPackage. We look forward to being able to add their distribution service to our value proposition for Meeting Rooms across the USA. This partnership allows us to capture large new client segments while adding even broader global accessibility.”
Ahola remains an evangelist for the digitization of the Meetings and Events segment. Even in the short-term he believes that the new working from home culture will have a positive impact on the number of small meeting rooms coming into inventory in development terms. He says, “People will still need to hold meetings as large corporates opt to downsize on office space in primary cities; companies may also opt to hold meetings in secondary locations or closer to employees’ homes. Hotels with a focus on bedrooms and office spaces used to more traditional tenancy arrangements are all looking for new ways to capture this demand and revenue.”
It is estimated that in 2019, more than 100 billion euros was spent globally on small meetings of under one hundred delegates and the vast majority of these events are still planned and booked offline.
