Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort

“Not just great products and services, but understanding and flexibility are important for partners, and Cvent has proven that they have these.”

Namtip Maghashthira, Assistant Director of Sales & Marketing

Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort came onboard with Cvent in 2019 and has greatly benefitted from Cvent’s marketing solutions. Paired with data analysis and the right mix of ad products on CSN, the property has created valuable awareness and engagement about the hotel's unique meetings and events footprint. 

Cvent’s Diamond Marketing Package helped the Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort team to increase their RFP volume quickly, catch up with the market, and book more MICE business. It has helped the property stay resilient in the current crisis caused by the pandemic and plan for a strategic recovery.

Introduction

Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort is a versatile venue, offering extensive meeting spaces suitable for large meetings or conferences. The resort features a prodigious room inventory, including twin bedded rooms, which are perfect for incentive groups. Additionally, it offers various outdoor venues perfect for hosting memorable events. These features and event spaces, along with ten restaurants and bars at the resort known for serving the world's most popular cuisines, have well-positioned the resort as one of the leading MICE destinations in Phuket.

The Changing Dynamics

Change is inevitable, but we must embrace these persistent ups and downs and learn to thrive on this roller coaster of transition. The COVID-19 pandemic affected all businesses globally, and the travel and hospitality sectors have also been deeply impacted.

The resort secured a good number of corporate meetings and incentive groups for 2020 since Q3 last year. It was blooming with bookings with around 15% of full-year room occupancy contributed by MICE alone until the pandemic hit the hotel business.

The resort had to change how they approached business fundamentally by adapting to the fluctuations caused by the unprecedented times while mapping the current market scenario.

The Challenge

Staying Resilient

A successful MICE strategy helps in maximising the space and revenue during the peak season by analysing the potential markets to secure a good pace in future. 

The biggest challenge pandemic posed was the paused travel for the past few months. This situation created a lot of uncertainty about when the business will get back to normal. Thus, maintaining customer relationships and staying visible seemed the only possible solution to remain on top of event planners' mind. That’s where Cvent comes into the picture, to help the resort uphold a level of engagement with the help of its marketing tools.  

The Solution

The hotel was experiencing a difficult phase for about six months. It became imperative for them to build a fresh strategy to achieve the targeted business goals. Namtip Maghashthira, Assistant Director of Sales & Marketing, Le Méridien Phuket, appointed herself and another team member as someone who would act like a Cvent bible and work closely with the resort’s Marketing Communications Manager to ensure the profile, content, and images are up to date on the Cvent Supplier Network. They also took a conscious decision to renew the contract with Cvent.

The Value of Strategic Partnership

The exemplary data provided by Cvent supported the resort's strategic planning in many aspects, including helping them choose the right business at the right price. Commenting on the partnership, Maghashthira says, “Not just great products and services, but understanding and flexibility are important for partners, and Cvent has proven that they have these.” She and her team at Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort look at Cvent as a promising content partner and rates Cvent 10/10 for its support. 

Maghashthira’s team collaborated with their Cvent account manager to understand the available solutions that can help increase their property’s visibility. Finally, the team at Le Méridien Phuket Beach Resort decided to leverage Cvent’s Diamond Marketing Packages, which helped them in highlighting and promoting their venue to the event planners sourcing venues in the region. The resort leveraged the exposure gained from Search Ads and other tools on the Cvent Supplier Network to get the message in front of the right planners — a message that included their true MICE value proposition.