17
Technology
Illustration by
Ouch.pi
Cvent secures
association contract
Artificial
unintelligence
- By Simon Clayton,
chief ideas officer, RefTech
HSMAI will make use of OnArrival to
seamlessly check-in attendees,
streamline onsite registration, print
name badges on-demand, and make
payments quickly through manned or
self-service kiosks.
Event technology company Cvent has
announced a new partnership with
the Europe region of the Hospitality
Sales and Marketing Association
International (HSMAI).
Cvent will provide technology
solutions to more than 75 small and
big events organised by HSMAI,
including the HSMAI Meeting and
Event Exchange in Norway.
HSMAI will make use of OnArrival
to seamlessly check-in attendees,
streamline onsite registration, print
name badges on-demand, and make
payments quickly through manned or
self-service kiosks.
It will also use Social Tables to
leverage to-scale diagramming
software with visual seating solutions
for real-time collaboration between
its planners, vendors, and event
staff, enabling them to better
visualise the event space and select
the perfect venue.
With Cvent Appointments, HSMAI
event attendees will pre-book
meetings with customers, prospects,
and fellow members before
attending any show or conference,
helping delegates maximise the
number of in-person meetings at
each event.
Ingunn Hofseth, president and
CEO for HSMAI Region Europe,
commented: “After having been
active in Europe for many years on
National levels, HSMAI Region
Europe became a true PAN-European
organisation at the end of 2015.
Their European Office was relocated
to London by the end of 2018.
“This important and great decision
has led to a rapid growth within
Europe. The collaboration with Cvent
will contribute to our further growth
and development and will benefit us
both and with that, most importantly,
the hospitality industry itself.
“We are very happy with our new
partner.”
www.conference-news.co.uk
AI is a very interesting technology and
although it is far from new, it is starting to
have an impact on many sectors and even
everyday life, but that doesn’t mean it will
be able to automatically schedule
meaningful and valuable appointments for
us at events.
I book quite a lot of hotels and like a lot of
people, I have a couple of preferred
websites that I book through, and these
sites have huge IT teams with access to any
technology they want. This means that
those sites have lots of data about my past
hotel bookings. Despite that, they can’t
make any sensible predictions on what
hotel I want to book next.
There are many reasons why I would or
wouldn’t book a hotel and it will vary from
booking to booking. How much time do I
have spare? Am I arriving by train or car?
Have I stayed there before? Is it for work or
pleasure? Is it close to a restaurant I like? AI
can never know all of those factors because
there are too many reasons for my choices
– and this is just like how we make
appointments for events - with loads of
different subjective nuances in the
decisions of who to see.
If AI, vast amounts of data and vast IT
resources can’t make intelligent
recommendations for me, how could it
recommend a supplier for you to meet?