Orchid Event Solutions - News Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Salt Lake City, Utah - Press Release

The 2014 dōTERRA Aspire Conference held at the Salt Palace Convention Center September 17-20, represented the largest attendance of any single-company corporate event in Salt Palace history, and one of the largest registration events handled by Orchid Event Solutions. 

Approximately 20,000 people registered for the event in the Orchid registration system.  dōTERRA attendees were so eager that 12,000 checked in a day before the general session, with Orchid’s system processing up to 2,000 attendees an hour with an average wait time of 4 minutes that day.  Thanks to great planning by the dōTERRA events team and their forward-looking use of registration technology, it was a huge success.

Another measure of this year’s success was the enthusiastic response to the pre-registration offering for next year’s event.  dōTERRA offers attendees special pricing for a limited time on next year’s event registration to generate excitement and encourage attendance.  Pre-registration for dōTERRA’s 2015 event was opened on the last day of this year’s event using Orchid’s self-registration kiosks in addition to online.  Initial pre-registration totals are already more than half of the total attendance for 2014. 

The collaborative relationship over the past five years between dōTERRA and Orchid insured that industry best practices for event registration were used to maximum advantage.  “dōTERRA has been a driver of innovation in event registration, streamlining the attendee registration experience, both online and on-site.  It has been exciting to work with such a progressive company that wants to take full advantage of what Orchid technology has to offer,” said Amy McMinn, CIO, Orchid.

About Orchid Event Solutions

Orchid provides full service online event registration and housing solutions to over 200 events annually.  Orchid offers customized web/mobile multilingual registration services, software, and on-site support.  Staffed with an in-house customer service center, Orchid leverages Passkey’s® hotel reservation system to provide web/mobile booking sites and specializes in sub-block exhibitor management. For more information, visit www.OrchidEventSolutions.com.

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.  

Salt Lake City, UT, August 2012 - Press Release
Orchid Event Solutions (Orchid) was awarded a multi-year agreement from American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) to be the official Convention Housing Service provider for ASHP’s largest event’s: the Midyear Clinical Meeting and the Summer Meeting. 

The Midyear Clinical Meeting is attended by more than 20,000 members and over 200 exhibitors from 86 countries.  Combined these meetings represent close to 50,000 room nights booked annually and over $10 million dollars of room revenue for the destination's hoteliers.  

“Orchid’s professionalism, integrity, and excellence have made them a valued partner of ASHP.  Besides providing excellent housing management, Orchid understands the importance of maintaining quality relationships and providing personalized attention to our exhibitors and attendees.  Orchid’s services are one key to the success and growth of our convention room blocks.”
Fran Lappin Byrnes
Director of Conference and Convention Planning, ASHP.

 “Orchid is thrilled to continue our long term partnership for convention housing services with ASHP.  Orchid has been the official convention housing service provide for ASHP’s Midyear Clinical Meeting and The Summer Meeting since 2008. We are dedicated to helping ASHP meet their event objectives. “
Tina Stark
Director of Sales, Orchid Event Solutions 

American Society of Health-System Pharmacists:
ASHP is a national professional organization whose nearly 40,000 members include pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy students who provide patient care services in hospitals, health systems, and ambulatory clinics. ASHP is the only national organization of hospital and health-system pharmacists and has a long history of improving medication use and enhancing patient safety.  ASHP hosts a number of national-level meetings and conferences each year to provide health-system pharmacy practitioners with venues for updating their knowledge, networking with colleagues, enhancing their skills, and learning about the latest health-system pharmacy issues, products and technologies.

Orchid Event Solutions:
Orchid is a full service provider of online event registration and convention housing services with over 20 years of experience.  One of the nation’s leading convention housing services providers, Orchid's focus is to assist event organizers in maximizing their hotel room blocks and minimizing any risk of attrition.  Utilizing the leading hotel booking and management technology, GroupMAX ME by Passkey, Orchid provides event specific web/mobile booking sites, extensive sub block and exhibitor management, in-house customer call center and on-site attendee support. 

Orchid provides customized web/mobile multilingual online event registration services, software, on-site registration support,  secure payment processing, exhibitor registration and exhibit booth personnel allocation, name badge and ticket production, attendance tracking, CEU management and certification, computer and printer rental and lead retrieval services.