Booking live inventory for meetings has eluded organizers and technologists for more than a decade. Live inventory for this segment requires access to guest rooms, meeting space and the services that underpin events, like catering and audiovisual, without going through a request-for-proposals process.
The industry has seen many efforts along these lines, but in most cases these platforms must return to some version of the traditional RFP to book a meeting with guest rooms, meeting space and catering. Groups360 closed that gap in 2021 with GroupSync Engage.
Kemp Gallineau co-founded the company in 2014, but in 2019 scored a $50 million investment from major hotel companies—Accor, Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott International—to pursue instant booking functionality on the GroupSync Engage platform with live guest room and meeting space inventory. IHG in February was the first hotel brand to roll inventory out on the platform followed by Omni Hotels and Hilton. Accor said it would activate its participation in the Engage platform in early 2022, but already had replaced the RFP functionality on its own website with a white-label version from Groups360. Gallineau said white-labeling the technology for other industry players was part of the strategy moving forward.
Nearly all inventory currently available on GroupSync Engage comes from platform investors, but a spokesperson said signups and adoption are coming at a swift pace. As hotel staffing shortages affect traditional RFP response times, offloading that pressure—particularly for small meetings—could free resources to service more complex business and buy time for hotel executives to rethink meetings sales teams, now with better automation in the mix.