An average of 350 days of sunshine per year and a thriving hospitality industry has solidified Greater Palm Springs as an ideal meeting location for event planners. To enhance benefits for meeting planners, the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) has teamed with Orchid Event Solutions - utilizing Passkey's GroupMAX hotel booking technology - to offer comprehensive full service convention housing management to its client base.
Following an extensive RFP and review process, Palm Springs selected Orchid Event Solutions as the official housing convention housing service provider for the Greater Palm Springs area, due largely to its employment of Passkey's GroupMAX technology.
"Orchid Event Solutions is among the largest users of Passkey's GroupMAX, a system that planners everywhere know and trust; that made Orchid the obvious choice for us," said Robert R. Osterberg, director of convention sales and services, Greater Palm Springs CVB. "Using these tools, we can now provide superior housing services to clients and hotels alike, placing us on the same level as major destinations."
"The Greater Palm Springs CVB's recent brand launch and new direction promotes an 'oasis' concept for its nine distinctive cities, focusing on their unification into a single destination," Osterberg said. "This partnership promises to enhance our brand and the meeting experience for meeting planners and attendees by providing an easy and seamless booking experience throughout the destination. Orchid and GroupMAX's combined housing and marketing toolset not only helps to increase attendance and hotel bookings but helps to market the destination, our local attractions, hotels and restaurants. This, in turn, delivers greater economic value to the Palm Springs community."
GroupMAX provides event attendees with the convenience of online hotel booking, and automates inventory tracking and reporting for meeting planners and hotels. Reservations are seamlessly transferred into a hotel's central reservation system, reducing potential errors and labor costs associated with manual data entry.
"Working with the Greater Palm Springs CVB and their hotel community has been a great experience for our team. As a major user of Passkey's GroupMAX tool, we are confident of our ability to drive attendance and bookings for their events and pleased that our services can contribute to the success and growth of their community," said Tina Stark, director of sales, Orchid Event Solutions.
Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau
The Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is a Joint Powers Authority that serves as a coordinating agency for sales, marketing and promotional efforts aimed at potential tourism, corporate, incentive and convention group markets. The CVB is dedicated to a program of work to benefit and promote the hospitality industry in the member cities in Riverside County, which include Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio and Coachella.
Passkey International, Inc.
Passkey (www.passkey.com) is the travel industry's de-facto standard hotel booking technology for meetings and events. The Company's cloud-based platform, GroupMAX ME, is used by thousands of hotels, destinations and meeting planners worldwide to manage the hotel accommodation process for events of every size. At the heart of GroupMAX ME is the ability for clients to offer event-specific web/mobile booking sites for event attendees to book their hotel rooms online while enjoying multiple stay and upgrade options. With offices in the US, the UK and Singapore, the Passkey global network now includes over 90% of major US and UK Convention and Visitors Bureaus, as well as a wide range of hotels, casinos, resorts, meeting planners, corporations and meeting management companies.
