Managing large events involves many time-consuming tasks, from finding the right venues to managing the on-site attendee experience. Often, event organizers and hotels spend countless hours on manual processes like managing room blocks, where technology can step in to save both sides time and money while enhancing collaboration. The American Council of Engineering Companies of Arizona and the Westin Riverwalk have both adopted technology that enables them to improve the planning process.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Tackling manual housing complexities 

The American Council of Engineering Companies of Arizona (ACEC Arizona) hosts multiple small- to mid-size professional trade and government meetings and a large annual conference with about 2,000 attendees. The Westin Riverwalk is in a perfect location in San Antonio, with 474 guest rooms and 20,000 square feet of meeting space. This enables it to host hundreds of events annually and frequently house guests attending events at the nearby convention center.

The ACEC AZ conferences are well attended, with engineers traveling from all over the state to participate. “In Tucson, Arizona, I’m dealing with smaller hotels and I have about 300,000 room nights to figure out across four or five different venues,” says Amerigo. “It’s a rooming list nightmare because each of those hotels has its own rooming list and its own format.” As with many conferences, ACEC aims to protect certain room blocks for specific registration types, such as VIPs, exhibitors, or general attendees. Amerigo collects this information and much more through the registration process and passes that along to her partner hotels. “We get a lot of information and don’t often know how to deal with it or what would best serve the hotels.”

The Westin Riverwalk is just one of many hotels that could participate in the room blocks for a large conference such as those ACEC plans. The hotel receives over 1,200 RFPs through the Cvent Supplier Network each year, 53% for events with more than 100 attendees. Brittany and her team are responsible for tracking all their registrations and reporting to event planners. As part of the process, they want each reservation to be as profitable for the hotel and as smooth for guests as possible. “I don’t have a conference without my hotel partner,” states Amerigo. “I need to be able to rely on them in the same way they rely on us."

This creates a seamless attendee experience from the first touchpoint. With custom booking sites, Passkey offers guests a simple, branded experience for self-managing bookings and shoulder night requests. Amerigo explains, “They don’t have to go to another site or call a hotel, and they have all the information they need.” Dashboards provide consistent communication between the hotel and planner around pickup rates, room availability, and any specific requests. Amerigo can also track pickup and attrition in real time, giving her the ability to make more informed decisions and take proactive measures.

For guests making a reservation at the Westin Riverwalk, Passkey’s technology offers additional options and amenities to improve the quality of their stay. “We’re more of a destination city,” says Brittany. “People want to come and experience the Riverwalk outside of the conference hours, go out to eat, and have a good time.” She adds that optimizing their use of Passkey is key. “In Passkey, we put as many pictures as possible to let the attendees know what they will see, building anticipation and excitement."

Expanding communication between planners and properties

Having one consolidated source of truth for complex housing blocks improves visibility and coordination for both the event professional and the hotel. Each can monitor reservations, track pickup, accommodate special requests and changes, and ensure correct billing and attribution. Passkey offers a planner portal so Amerigo can check each room block and reservation independently and as needed. “It’s a constant communication,” said Brittany. “Passkey keeps the event flowing all the way up through the event date.”

She adds that ensuring venues maintain consistent communication is an important factor in building strong relationships with planners. “We could be working a year in advance, but we know each other so well that by the time the day comes, it’s all a breeze!” she shares. “The planner can just check their portal and see what their pickup’s at or who hasn’t registered.” Building that collaborative relationship is vital, Brittany says. She adds, “I’m there to support them, but they have the empowerment to do everything on their own."

For her large events using multiple hotels, ensuring each attendee books the correct location used to be a spreadsheet nightmare. With Passkey, she can establish rules for booking, rates, and duration from the start instead of trying to fix mistakes after they are made. She shares, “Whether I’ve got 3,000 or 100 room nights, I always set it up in Passkey."

Protecting guest data with secure Cvent solutions

When attendees register for an event and select a hotel room, they entrust the event organizers with highly personal data. Amerigo and other planners know they must protect that information. “We have a lot of data, and it’s sensitive data,” she notes. Security is another important reason Amerigo trusts Passkey as her preferred room block technology. “In Passkey, that room is secured,” she explains. “The charge processing goes through Passkey, and it’s housed there.”

Brittany and her team rely on Passkey for the same data security. “Being able to restrict access really does create confidence for the customer,” she says. “Everything is encrypted.” The Westin Riverwalk processes more than 24,000 reservations through Cvent Passkey annually and are able to assure guests that their personal and credit card information is secure.

With the basics easily handled, Brittany and her team at the Westin Riverwalk can focus on improving the guest experience. “We’ve implemented primary inventory, giving attendees the option to stay in a better room with a great view,” she explains. “That extra revenue only helps the planners and has given us more options for property improvements. We get to pass on all the benefits to the guests and create better guest experiences that lead to repeat clients.” These upsell and extended stay options bring in more than $700,000 in additional revenue for the hotel annually.

In addition, the time saved for both parties translates to an upgraded event and local San Antonio experience. “All of those integrations are a pretty sweet thing,” Amerigo shares. “For me, it’s priceless – it saves hours and hours of manual work.” The same is true for the host hotel. “Passkey takes a lot of time off of our team, which is the biggest money saver at the end of the day,” Brittany agrees. “We can instead be building more events.” They both look forward to continued use of Passkey to help grow their success.

BACKGROUND

Bishop-McCann is a full-service event management partner that helps innovative companies elevate their events and increase attendee engagement by connecting audiences with their brand. Since 1997, Bishop-McCann has managed tens of thousands of programs globally, with services including event planning, sourcing, production, creative design, group air travel, and event technology management. 

Rob Adams, CEO and Owner, elaborates on Bishop-McCann’s expansive offerings. “We do everything from board meetings of 50 people all the way to events for 15,000, and we do incentive trips all over the globe,” he explains. Most importantly, he says, Bishop-McCann’s central mission is to “create JOY” for their clients. “It’s about two things: trust and purpose,” he shares. “That’s essentially what creates happiness.”

Most recently, Bishop-McCann has focused heavily on ensuring it provides strong data security for clients. This is one area Rob cites as a particular strength of Cvent. He shares, “One of the things I’m so proud of in this relationship with Cvent is data security because if there’s one thing that is in every conversation I’m having with our clients, it’s security.” Cvent maintains high standards of data security, including adhering to and surpassing PCI DSS compliance standards. 

Built on a robust Information Security Management System, which is underscored by an ISO 27001 certification, Cvent offers a comprehensive security strategy. With strict network and data controls, Cvent ensures payment data is protected. In addition, the information security program is formalized, documented, and supported by a range of administrative, technical, and physical security safeguards. Cvent maintains several certifications to ensure a strong security posture and is compliant across all solutions and data centers, maintaining industry best practices for security. “Cvent has done a great job working with our team to ensure the platform we’re working with is secure,” Rob says.

APPROACH

Powering successful client events using integrated Cvent solutions

By using tools like Cvent’s Registration solution, Bishop-McCann is able to not only collect and securely store attendee and event data, but the team is also able to ensure its clients benefit from having a single source of truth. “Registration is the backbone of everything we do,” says Rob. The flexibility of the Registration solution has been particularly useful in managing a wide variety of client events of different scopes and sizes as their business continues to grow. “The ability to be agile and flexible is extremely important for Bishop-McCann,” he adds. His team can create different registration paths and attendee types for a more personalized experience across different event types and formats. This ensures the team provides more accurate attendee data to help better prove event ROI for its clients. In fact, Bishop-McCann has seen an impressive 147% increase in Cvent event registrations managed year-over-year. 

Crafting customized attendee experiences with the Cvent Attendee Hub and Event App

The Attendee Hub provides a cohesive attendee experience, from building their agenda to viewing session and speaker details and staying up to date with push notifications. They can also connect with their peers through networking features like one-to-one attendee messaging, attendee recommendations, and discussions. As Bishop-McCann serves a variety of clients across industries around the world, Attendee Hub is built to scale as needed to meet client requirements – regardless of event format or type. 

Attendees can also provide feedback through embeddedsurveys, which give event organizers a more complete view of attendee interests and insights. They can also combine this data with engagement scoring to ensure Bishop-McCann’s clients are able to better tailor their post-event follow up. In fact, Bishop-McCann saw a 140% increase in Cvent surveys launched year-over-year, with an astounding 1,789% increase in responses received. 

Rob mentions specifically they would like to have “the ability to print less, ship less, and recycle more.” By leveraging digital solutions like the Event App, Bishop-McCann’s clients are able to reduce paper usage and avoid high printing volumes. In addition, other solutions like OnArrival Premium reduce dependencies on pre-printed badges by offering on-demand check-in and badge printing. With a quick QR scan or check-in via iPads, attendees can receive their on-demand badge in seconds. This not only eliminates lengthy queues, but also allows for onsite changes without wasting badge stock on unused pre-printed badges or those needing reprints. In addition, Cvent offers many eco-friendly options for onsite badging, including recyclable, biodegradable, and sustainable materials for badges, badge holders, and lanyards.

Cvent Event Diagramming (CED) also provides sustainable options for the Bishop-McCann team. Stakeholders can enjoy a virtual walk-through of venues and event spaces in detailed photorealistic 3D, saving travel costs and reducing the carbon footprint of onsite visits. Event diagramming also helps Bishop-McCann move away from cumbersome manual processes and increase efficiencies for their clients. CED allows Bishop-McCann to create an accurate depiction of various spaces with details like furniture included. The team can design set-ups with accurately scaled floor plans, manage seating and meal preferences efficiently, and sync registration data into CED for automated workflows. The tool also ensures clients are able to collaborate in real-time and see the most up-to-date renderings to ensure accuracy. 

In fact, this easy access to event data is a key concern for many organizations. That’s why Bishop-McCann offers on-demand data sharing through Cvent’s Access Portal, which provides clients visibility into relevant data and reports. Bishop-McCann can choose to provide access and visibility on an individual user basis, so each stakeholder sees the reporting and analytics that are most relevant to their needs. Ultimately, Access Portal makes it easier for non-Cvent users to view the real-time data they need to maximize the impact of their events. Rather than relying on Bishop-McCann’s team to provide regular reports, clients are able to self-serve by accessing reports any time they need to. This ensures they remain informed of event progress at all times, freeing up valuable time for the Bishop-McCann team as well. 

MOVING FORWARD

Evolving industry relationships with Cvent and Bishop-McCann at the helm

Ultimately, using Cvent provides Bishop-McCann one very important benefit: a single data source they can trust across their clients’ events. Rob shares, “By far, the number one impact we’re seeing in using Cvent is just having a single source of truth.” As he looks to the near future, Rob is eager to see how these types of relationships continue to evolve. “I think we’re in a state of what I would call evolution as an industry,” he says. “What I think that means is we’re going to see a lot more strategic partnerships.” 

In light of this perspective, Rob cites Bishop-McCann’s trust in Cvent as the key reason for their continued partnership. “I would put Cvent as one of our top three most strategic partners we have,” he says. That trust extends beyond the platform itself to the valuable working relationship his team has with Cvent. This not only benefits Bishop-McCann, but perhaps most importantly, positively impacts their clients. Rob summarizes, “From our account manager to the leadership team at Cvent, we see that Cvent really helps accelerate our journey and our ability to impact JOY for clients.” 

PRODUCTS USED