Does a Hotel-Backed Meetings Booking Platform Stand a Chance?
Photo Credit: Attendees at a business conference get lunch. Flickr / QnA Summit
Skift Take
Hotels need to be willing to make more investments — and to give up some of their control — if Groups360 is going to work.
Hotels are making yet another attempt to modernize the booking process while still maintaining a high amount of control over it. Just last week, major hotel chains Marriott, InterContinental Hotels Group, Hilton, and Accor collectively invested $50 million in a small company called Groups360, a platform which helps match meeting planners with venues.
The investment is relatively large, meaning the hotels seem to be serious about this new step. They've begun to bristle at the rising costs associated with using a third party service like Cvent, and it is increasingly impossible to ignore that consumers are not going to put up with the current, outmoded form of meeting booking for much longer.
“Our customers have told us that the current shopping and booking process for small groups is out of sync with their day-to-day digital shopping habits," said Brian King, Marriott International’s global officer of digital, distribution, revenue strategy and global sales. "This process is e
