Its goal relative to the association and trade show world is simple. "We want to own it," says Peggy Lee, CEO and founder of Westport, Conn.-based b-there.com (www.b-there.com), an Internet-based housing, registration, and travel provider.
Lee has announced an alliance with Arlington, Va.-based PGI Inc., an exhibition and destination management agency; and a preferred vendor agreement with iConvention.com, a Citrus Heights, Calif.-based virtual trade show provider.
B-there.com also signed an agreement with Dallas-based Pegasus Solutions Inc., tapping into the Pegasus switching system, which can connect meeting planners to the approximately 32,000 hotels and CVBs worldwide that use the Pegasus engine for processing electronic reservations.
Lee spun b-there.com off from her other company, Lee Travel Group, which has a large meeting planning department. The Internet tool is attendee-centric and integrates event registration, housing reservations, and travel. It can be managed by the planner and, Lee says, competes directly with Passkey.com, a Quincy, Mass.-based Internet housing provider.
"We know that 70 percent of attendees do something leisure-related such as restaurants, entertainment, and recreational events," she says, "We can do all that and the planner can still use all the data. It just takes the attendee management part off their hands."
B-there.com sets up a revenue sharing model with the association for any retail purchase made by the attendee through b-there's engine. The company makes its money through a transaction-based model: $5 per housing transaction and $3 for other attendee transactions.