RendezVerse announces seed funding round
RendezVerse , which claims to be the first Metaverse as a Service ( MaaS ) platform for the hospitality industry , is seeking £ 7.5m ( US $ 8.6m ) in a seed round to scale up .
The company says 33 % of all hotel revenue is event-related , rising to 75 % in sector-specific hotels . RendezVerse says it will use any new anticipated funding to acquire 3,000 venues and 10,000 users , and has set the aim of reaching £ 30m ( US $ 34m ) in sales by 2026 .
Peter Gould , CEO of RendezVerse and chairman of Worldwide Events , says : “ The hotel and events sector is worth $ 1.25t , but venue owners are performing site visits in person or using video platforms and phones for remote site inspections . This workflow is inefficient ; it ’ s time to upgrade .”
RendezVerse has seen £ 2.5m ( US $ 2.9m ) invested to date . Twenty digital twins have been created , resulting in 40,000sqm of event spaces in the metaverse . Customers include Marriott , Atlantis , and Hilton .
American Express and Cvent enhance virtual payments platform
American Express and Cvent , a MICE technology provider , have expanded the Cvent Event Marketing & Management platform ’ s virtual payment capabilities , leveraging American Express ’ s budget management and payment automation solutions .
Virtual funding account options will also be increased with vPayment , an American Express payment solution that assigns a single-use account number to each transaction , later this year . New automated processes for 2023 promise greater budget visibility , more audit controls , and better data consistency . The main attributes
MICE planners are looking for in a spend management software platform are :
• Simple user experience ( 50 %)
• Enhanced security ( 48 %)
• Integrated meeting and expense budget platform ( 39 %)
• Greater budget visibility ( 37 %)
• Automated end-to-end reconciliation ( 37 %)
The American Express Meeting & Events Trendex poll in early September showed 97 % of 305 corporate event planners believe events and meetings are equally or more important compared to prepandemic , with about 74 % expecting their 2023 MICE budget to increase .
Left : Rendezverse Inside RV - Madrid Marriott Auditorium
Edinburgh eventprofs launch impact tool
On 17 October , a group of Edinburgh-based event professionals launched a tool to measure the societal impact that conferences and business events have in the city .
The Business Events Shaping Tomorrow ( BEST ) tool evaluates the positive outcomes from the business events hosted in the capital each year by inviting those involved in the conference to provide qualitative , verifiable data regarding areas including wellbeing , food , volunteering , and social interactions . Organisers are awarded an accreditation based on their positive contributions .
BEST was created by a collaborative group of Edinburgh ’ s organisations such as EICC , Edinburgh Airport , and Convention Edinburgh , to help event organisers make their conferences adhere to the UN ’ s Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ). Amanda Wrathall , sales and marketing director of EICC and Convention Edinburgh , commented : “ Traditionally , we have not had the tools to measure values out with the economic impact of an event . BEST will enable us to measure areas including wellbeing and community involvement .”
40 Issue 6 2022 www . exhibitionworld . co . uk