Skift Take
Companies can now expand their use of online platforms to book small meetings in creative venues, because they now have the ability to message venues directly in real-time and integrate compliance requirements.
The Future of Meetings & Events
The last few years have seen a rise of online platforms to book small meeting spaces in creative venues, including sites such as Bizly and Spacebase. They're designed to alleviate the headaches around the manual request-for-proposal (RFP) process by providing instant direct booking capability and non-negotiable lowest rate guarantees.
“No one wants to use RFPs for small meetings today; they are universally hated by both suppliers and buyers,” Ron Shah, founder of Bizly, told me. “Suppliers generally have less than one percent conversion, and buyers always have to wait endlessly to hear back from them. And then there’s all of this negotiation that has to be processed manually, either via email or phone or whatever. It just sucks for everyone.”
However, enterprise clients want added customization and compliance systems built into these platforms in order to use them more often company-wide. Jumping on that, Shah relaunched an expanded Bizly website this month with a new
