EventaGlobal Acquires GroupOnomics, Targets Wholesale Change in Hotel/Meetings Transaction Chain and Rebrands as Groups360
Company introduces GroupSync, an industry-first search engine
May 27, 2015, 10:55 ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- EventaGlobal has acquired GroupOnomics, the nation's largest groups transaction database, and rebranded as Groups360, signifying the company's ability to work with both hotels and meeting planners.
The combined management team, with more than 100 years of hospitality experience, solves problems in the hotel/meetings transaction chain that cost the industry billions of dollars.
"Let's face it – the RFP process is broken. Groups360 fixes it. We estimate that problems with how business is done now have ballooned into $7 billion in inefficiencies every year," said Kemp Gallineau, chief executive officer.
In 2014, Gallineau teamed with Groups360 Chairman David Kloeppel, formerly COO and president of Gaylord Entertainment. Together, they determined that lack of transparency, information and trust in how meetings get booked creates unnecessary costs.
They acquired EventaGlobal to gain insight into the challenges of meeting planners and hotels from the sourcing side. That led to development of GroupSync.
GroupSync, a unique search engine powered by a proprietary event-hotel matching algorithm using STR data, helps meeting planners find locations that really work for them. With GroupSync, planners will save time sourcing hotels and be confident they are choosing the locations that best match their needs.
"We don't tell a meeting planner where to go. Our algorithm identifies the best hotel options for planners, not hotels we are incentivized to promote," said Gallineau, previously chief sales officer at Gaylord Entertainment and general manager of three of the world's largest hotels.
The acquisition of GroupOnomics positions the company to provide better information and better data to meeting planners and hoteliers alike. GroupOnomics has the industry's largest database of meeting transactions, making it appealing to sales executives, revenue managers, general managers and owners.
Hotels use it to evaluate group attendance, spend levels and risk during contracting and to manage room blocks and evaluate pickup levels. This improves hoteliers' forecasting in a historically unpredictable environment.
It also gives hotels information for highly targeted sales prospecting. GroupOnomics has a service called the Prospecting Concierge that sets a new standard for finding groups that exactly fit a hotel's needs.
One hotel sales executive called GroupOnomics "the Mercedes-Benz of hotel intelligence technology."
"With the introduction of GroupSync and acquisition of GroupOnomics, Groups360 provides the hotel industry with the first end-to-end solution for meeting search, acquisition, planning and forecasting. No one else serves planners and hotels in this fashion. We are uniquely able to attack everyone's lost time, lost money and frustration," Gallineau said.
Using Groups360, planners will save time and money in identifying and booking the best hotels for their needs, and hotels will derive significant cost reductions through lowered commissions, more accurate forecasting and higher occupancy levels.
"Our team has occupied every seat at the table in the planning of meetings and running of hotels. There's no reason the most basic element of the meetings industry – finding the right place to meet – should be a costly, tension-riddled process," Kloeppel said.
"Groups360 can end today's adversarial climate because we provide solid data to planners and to hotels. Logical, responsible and profitable decisions are the result," he said.
Details are online at Groups360.com.
Related Links:
Groups360
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SOURCE Groups360