Listen to this articleHotelPlanner is one of the largest group travel companies with over 1,500 groups processed per day. HotelPlanner provides group travels for sports teams, business meetings, weddings, family reunions, or any event needing 10+ hotel rooms.
Below is our interview with CIO and Co-Founder of HotelPlanner John Prince:
Q: John, how would you describe HotelPlanner and services it provides?
A: Since 2002, HotelPlanner.com has focused on booking group travel at hotels. The company’s objective is to help consumers and businesses realize the best value in terms of rate and hotel quality when there is a need to book group travel. Our mission from the beginning was to develop “high tech and high touch” resources for all types of event and group travel planners. For example, our team members work with youth & adult sport teams, corporate travel, weddings, family reunions, associations, incentive travel and more. Our goal is to make the process of booking hotel rooms for groups faster, easier, and more affordable. We developed the technology in-house to deliver a service that ensures the lowest rates by allowing clients to receive quotes directly online from hotel sales managers. We review all hotel group deals on a group-by-group basis using regional planners with more than 10 years of group travel expertise to help event planners get the right hotel, a value based rate and fair contract terms from the hotel. Our multilingual planners are located in key locations throughout the USA and around the world, each specializing in the market where they live. They know their hotel properties well and can make the best connection between hotels and event planners. As a privately held, customer oriented company we’ve grown organically and have also expanded beyond group travel into creating an individual hotel booking product developing new markets in long stays, corporate travel, and booking meeting space only to better serve the greater travel needs of our customers.
Recommended: HubStor Simplifies Cloud Storage Archiving for Business
Q: The company owns website Meetings.com; could you tell us something more?
A: Meetings.com is indeed our sister brand specializing in helping corporate clients and professional event planners select the right property for their meetings and events around the world. In 2013, we acquired Meetings.com to further expand our corporate, meetings and business travel segments. Our meeting space portal enables event planners to connect with over 100,000 hotels and venues to find the ideal location for their unique event and budget. We also provide customized hotel and meeting programs for both associations and corporations, including catering managers and event venue owners. Meetings.com continues to grow rapidly offering the best technical and professional service solutions for event planners that are looking for the perfect hotel or venue for their next group event.
Recommended: Virtual Receptionist Provider Conversational Shares Top 5 Customer Service Tips
Q: What have been some major milestones over the last 24 months?
A: This year we celebrated our 14th year in business with over five million unique visitors a month. We opened our global corporate headquarters in West Palm Beach, FL, last December after experiencing a 25% growth in online group hotel reservations and meeting space bookings in 2015 alone. With a 30% growth in the leisure group market YOY today, we now book more than 3,000 groups a day, generate 50,000 in global group leads per month, and have increased active hotel membership to 60,000 quality hotels worldwide. We now have staff working for the company based all over the world.
Recommended: MusicRogue Is Disrupting The Telecom Industry And How Users’ Time Is Controlled By Giving Callers Choice
Q: What geographic markets are you focusing on currently?
A: We recently opened a second office in Bath in the UK after opening our European headquarters in London to meet the growing demands of group travel in the area. HotelPlanner also continues to expand our business operations within the Asia market with our regional headquarters based in Hong Kong. The company does excellent business throughout the Americas with Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean solid growth markets.
Q: What will HotelPlanner focus on for the coming year?
A: We are committed to delivering an exceptional personalized user experience and continue to invest in developing the best site experience in the industry by learning from our clients, hotel community, and partners. The company is focused on expanding its footprint in the corporate market, expanding business booked for individual travelers and providing enhanced services for leisure oriented group travelers. Finally, HotelPlanner is now offering its software for hotels to use for their clients that want to book groups or meetings directly at their hotels.
Activate Social Media:
