“ We need to get through barriers and embrace it ,” said Douglas O ’ Neill , CEO of Inntel .
“ If you offer online accommodation booking but not online meetings bookings , once it starts to gather pace , you may start to lose business ,” he added with caution .
“ What every booker wants is the easiest route to market – and as an agency it ’ s up to us to deliver added value ,” noted Alexi Hughes , director of Votel Venues . The implication here being an acceptance that the traditional agency model is due for change , but it doesn ’ t have to be taken as a negative ; quite the opposite as Paul Casement , director of account management at Clarity Travel noted : “ From an economic point of view we have to sharpen up the booking side for small meetings . I ’ m looking at Instant Book in terms of saving costs , re-utilising resources and providing a better service to customer .”
Addressing the comments made by Scully in the previous session , Richard Shacklock said that instant book “ will allow me to expand and add value ; i . e . consultancy . At the moment we ’ re not able to do this as much as we ’ d like .
“ You can book accommodation , but you can ’ t book a meeting room out of office hours – many people now want to .”
Hughes added : “ There ’ s a concern that if you let the small
bookings go direct , you ’ ll eventually lose the big budgets .”
Casement also said that most clients are still asking for multiple venue options and that this hasn ’ t changed with the pandemic . He said : “ Therefore , instant book serves a purpose when your client knows exactly what they want and they don ’ t necessarily need to have further discussion around options .
“ We need to provide exceptional service to justify why our clients have chosen to work with an agency .”
The venue view In response to Begley ’ s early comment that hotels don ’ t care about their M & E as much as accommodation , Agency Edge Venues ’ CEO Jacqui Kavanagh said : “ I think they care too much and perhaps that needs to change .”
With notable exceptions , many venues are at the very beginning of their instant book journey . While palpable enthusiasm was obvious , there remains many snags , certainly in the case of bigger hotel chains who already have to use an existing software , and for which the technical updates required are either not possible or fraught with challenges .
Opinions among venues were broadly mixed . Lucy Sikora , director of business development at The Savoy said : “ This is the perfect topic to discuss in person . We need more education around the technicalities of Instant book in order to drive
confidence and move forward .”
Ian Quartermaine , non-excutive board director , MeetingsInn , which specialises in bringing meetings into pubs . He said : “ These are often small and simple meetings , which fit the bill in terms of instant book . The challenge we have is that pubs aren ’ t as sophisticated tech-wise so we ’ re exploring ways to address this .”
Warwick Conferences ’ revenue manager Maxine Hoskin , however , echoed calls for consistent language : “ I totally agree with the discussion around focussing on simple meetings rather than small meetings . The term ‘ small ’ can be misleading . We need to adopt more accurate language , using ‘ simple ’,” she said .
The tech view It was evident in the room that many venues and agencies are not convinced the technology is currently suitable for instant book , in the context of the various add-ons such as catering and audio-visual .
A point of note was that this practice is more widespread in the US , so why is the UK trailing ? The panel broadly agreed that as it ’ s a new technology , there is a lot of apprehension and adoption hesitancy . Also , overall staff shortages are making this a lower priority for implementation . All these factors together are holding it up .
“ Many of our venue clients like to deal with all enquiries in a personal way so are reluctant to lose that . But it is changing . Venues are becoming more comfortable about releasing access to inventory ,” said Luis De Souza , CEO , NFS Technology .
Dan Humby , VP of sales in Europe at Groups360 added : “ It ’ s a complex issue with a lot of legacy technology to overcome and many different technologies in use . But it can only get better .” CN www . conference-news . co . uk