Hotel Online Special Report


Passkey is Named MPI's Exclusive Digita 
Partner for Group Housing
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MPI Selects Industry Leading ASP Solution For Group Reservations
Management And Distribution, Education Partnership
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Quincy, Mass., June 17, 2003 - Under a new strategic alliance, Passkey has been named the exclusive digital partner of group housing for Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International (MPI).

The agreement, which will streamline MPI's process of facilitating housing requests, involves several important elements including special benefits to members who license Passkey and collaboration between MPI and Passkey on industry education initiatives.  In addition, Passkey is now the preferred housing solution for MPI's international education and networking events, such as the World Education Congress (Aug. 3-5, 2003 in San Francisco), Professional Education Conference-North America, and MPI Institutes I&II.

According to David DuBois, CMP, CAE, interim chief operating officer for MPI and executive vice president of the MPI Foundation, "Passkey's housing solution is an excellent fit with our industry's drive to find increasingly efficient ways of doing business and improve MPI member service at the same time.  Those objectives may sound mutually exclusive, but the shared information environment created by Passkey's ASP software is a perfect example of the ways technology can focus fewer resources on a problem while producing significantly improved results."

In its role as a champion of meeting professionals, MPI is keen to identify and adopt tools that exemplify a "best practices" approach to the business.  As just one example of how Passkey reflects that philosophy, several of the solution's features afford considerable assistance with managing the "book around" issue currently dominating conversations among meeting planners and hoteliers alike.

In addition to MPI's use of Passkey for its own meetings, the agreement provides special terms for MPI members who choose to license Passkey.  Links on the MPI website (www.mpiweb.org) will make it easy for planners to identify Passkey-enabledSM venues.  Also, Passkey will be collaborating with MPI on educational materials to raise the awareness of industry professionals about the benefits of automation to housing management.  Clearly, this highly anticipated partnership is critical for industry professionals seeking to address today's meeting management challenges through better technology solutions.  In fact, the industry itself becomes stronger as the substantial efficiencies created by automation make meetings more profitable for all involved.

According to Tom Walker, Passkey's VP of Alliances, "The capabilities and benefits of automation for housing management are really beginning to capture the interest of hoteliers, meeting planners, meeting managers and others.  Our objective with respect to education is to produce and present curricula that illustrate clearly and objectively how automation improves the event management process.  Although electronic tools have gained a solid industry foothold, there is tremendous remaining opportunity to broaden people's understanding.  In the world of group housing management, today's sophisticated electronic tools can deliver unprecedented benefits - dramatically greater profitability, accuracy and appreciably improved customer service.  Passkey will unavoidably benefit, along with the rest of the industry, as more and more people become knowledgeable about the solutions available to them."

About MPI
Founded in 1972, Meeting Professionals International, with nearly 19,000 members in 60 countries with 60 chapters and four chapters in formation, is the leading global community committed to shaping and defining the future of the meeting and event industry. For more information, visit www.mpiweb.org.

About Passkey
Passkey, the Internet-based booking engine and event management solution, is the meetings and convention industry's standard for group reservations management and distribution. The Quincy, Mass.-based provider empowers organizers of single property meetings and citywide events with access to a Web-based application that provides all parties with 24/7, shared access to critical event information and real-time reports. The Passkey-enabled global network consists of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), hotels, association and corporate meeting planners, meeting management companies, Professional Congress Organizers (PCOs), travel agencies, and registration vendors. Passkey investors include: Lazard Technology Partners; Sabre (NYSE: TSG) (www.sabre.com); Galileo (NYSE: GLC) (www.galileo.com); Worldspan (www.worldspan.com); and TravelCLICK (www.travelclick.net).

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Contact:

Kelly Schulz
Meeting Professionals International
(972) 702-3033
[email protected]

Passkey
Dahlia El Gazzar 
Marketing Director 
voice: 617-237-8238
email: [email protected]
http://www.passkey.com
 



 
Also See: Passkey Appoints Chris Avery as New VP, Business Development / March 2003
Passkey Goes Global; Opens Office in Dublin, Lyon Convention and Visitors Bureau First European City to Become Passkey-enabled / Nov 2002
Boca Resorts, Inc., Selects Passkey to Further Serve Meeting and Event Planners / Oct 2002
Omni Hotels First to Implement Passkey Enterprise Solution Across Entire 40-Property Portfolio / Oct 2002
PGA of America Hits the Green With Passkey / Aug 2002
Nothing But BlueSkyz and Passkey / Sept 2002
Jay Ramadorai Joins Passkey as Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer / July 2002
Passkey Names Former Hotel Executives Paul Rantilla and Andrew Mace to Sales Positions / April 2002 


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