Booking meetings: the big bang is still a long way off

While hotel reservations are now largely automated, the same cannot be said, far from it, for an important component of the business: meetings and seminars. "The day we get there will be a major step forwardsays Paul-Édouard Le Bret of Louvre Hotels. But, for the moment, it's still a matter of human management. Firstly, because meeting rooms are rarely integrated into hotel management and reservation systems; and secondly, because the management of these spaces is more complicated, as the organisation of meeting rooms is flexible."

Agathe Fabron, from AccorHotels, agrees: "The real issue is online booking, the Holy Grail for many players. Today, no one really knows how to do it, as most of them work with an extranet. Things will certainly change over the next 12-18 months, but true 100 % live distribution will take longer. I'm not sure we'll see that happen in the next three years."So where do we stand today? "Like other hotel groups, we have a meetings and events website.explains Agathe Fabron. It allows you to select hotels according to their capacity, location and facilities, and then send a request directly to the right establishment."

Online call for tenders

On the other side of the mirror, the major business travel agencies have boosted their MICE departments with key acquisitions such as Bank Sadler by American Express or Ormes by Carlson Wagonlit. BCD Travel, for its part, has developed its Meetingsource online platform to enable users to book rooms and send requests to hotels, all of which helps to increase visibility of MICE expenditure. Similarly, HRS, with its HRS Meetings and Groups solution, can select and put several hotels in competition with each other, then send them an online request for proposals (RFP), before receiving their proposal via the tool.

However, the big night of 100 % automation still seems a long way off. But that's not stopping some players from rising to the challenge. As history tends to repeat itself, a movement similar to that which gave rise to hotel booking platforms is being reproduced in the events sector. A start-up like Bird Office is using the same recipes that have made HCorpo and HRS so successful: the integration of corporate payment methods, centralised billing and, above all, content, with the possibility of booking meeting rooms both inside and outside hotels. "Not all hotels offer their availability in real time, but those that do are highlighted by our algorithm. In this context, we are either directly connected to the hotel management system, or the hotels use the seminar management tool that we make available to them."explains Arnaud Katz, founder of Bird Office.

For its part, GroupCorner, which specialises in booking accommodation for leisure groups, has launched its Pro solution, designed for travel agencies, but which can also be deployed directly in companies. "It is a kind of SBT dedicated to meetings, which enables bookings to be made at 23,000 accommodation venues across Europe. All bookings are fed into the same tool, and hotel payments can be managed via the platform using a single virtual Iban system. This consolidates expenditure"says Antoine de Corson, founder of GroupCorner. And yet, in the end, could the big winner once again be an online travel agency? Since 2017, Expedia tests with Best Western Germany's Meeting Market booking engine, a dedicated meetings tool that promises to cut RFP response times from 5 hours to 14 minutes. Disruption of disruptions, everything is disruption...