Groups360 has launched a new tool for enterprise-level planners that provides control over and visibility into group bookings made on the firm’s hotel-booking platform GroupSync.
Called GroupSync Planner+, the tool was created to help corporations standardize meeting-planning processes. It starts with a meeting-request form that can be customized to a company’s meeting-approval processes based on meeting type or budget. With the centralized platform, meeting leaders will see who is holding meetings, where they’re holding them, and how much is being spent. Reporting from the system could include, for example, event spend versus budget, event requests by department, or RFP volume by hotel chain.
Also, Groups360 says Planner+ users will soon be able to apply their organization’s master service agreements and set preferred-hotel properties, chains, or brands.
Over the last half decade, Groups360 has made waves as an event-sourcing technology company for two key reasons. First, in 2019 four of the world’s biggest hotel chains—Marriott International, Accor, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, and Hilton Worldwide—made a combined $50 million investment in the company.
And second, its GroupSync platform includes an especially innovative small-meetings instant-booking tool, allowing planners to book both guest-room blocks of up to 25 rooms and event spaces without contacting the hotel directly or sending an RFP. This innovation has been widely adopted by Marriott in the U.S., but other chains currently offer it only in select markets or limit real-time booking to guest rooms.
The company’s new Planner+ tool is integrated with GroupSync, allowing stakeholders to track meeting data, including small meetings, in a single portal, which solves one of the “inherent challenges” for business-event planners, says Christian Oliver, Groups360’s senior vice president product: “organizing and standardizing the disparate processes that companies use to plan and track various types of events.”
