Government Business

Economic pundits’ indications that the British economy is moving slowly out of recession are little consolation for those still experiencing difficult times. The fact is that few are expecting a dramatic upturn or significant return to growth, and the meetings and events industry like many others has suffered dramatically during the recession. Budgets remain tight, delegate numbers are down and there is ever more emphasis on procurement control and the need to show a return on investment. Surely though, buyers are entitled to ask the market to provide what they need to make their events a success in good times as well as bad? It’s true that in the face of this adversity the count of businesses that have gone under grows daily, but it is also true that opportunities still exist if venues can deliver what a client requires.

Excelling for clients
One company, venuedirectory.com, the venue data market leader, is on average generating £1 million in confirmed business for its clients weekly. The company has created a web-based system, GRATIS, that enables event organisers and agents to find the precise venue they need to suit clients’ requirements from a database of over 8,000 venues based on over 200 search terms. The system also generates a professionally formatted colour proposals at the tap of a button and when the venue is chosen by the client, it tracks spend for every delegate through every stage of the event.
    
venuedirectory.com commercial director, Michael Begley comments: “We’ve made considerable investment in research and development to create the GRATIS system. It is now the search tool of a number of leading agents making a massive impact with speed, presentation and reporting functionality. The fact that we’re already generating an average of £1million a week in confirmed business for clients is more than encouraging. We’re looking forward to discussing GRATIS and all its benefits with additional potential users when we formerly launch the system at this year’s International Confex exhibition.”

Return on investment
In addition to venue search and tracking spend for agents, venuedirectory.com allows venues that promote their properties on the website to pull financial reports from tracking data captured for their venue by GRATIS agents. This means the venue’s management can see how many enquiries the system has generated for them at any given period of time. When bookings have been made, the system provides full details of the booking journey from enquiry to confirmation and clearly ascertains the venue’s return on investment.

Returning the industry to success
venuedirectory.com’s development of GRATIS is an example of business acumen and innovation driving success; those wishing to succeed should consider applying similar measures to their business model. Clearly, what this company has done is unique to it, but each organisation has a choice to either deliver satisfactorily or to excel, adapting to change, driving innovation and ultimately finding the right way to provide clients in their sector with what they require. It’s an age old business rule, simply ‘give the customer what they want’. The fortunes of the industry will be turned around when those businesses within it consider the problems its buyers are facing and provide effective solutions.

Product confidence
When achieving value for money and ensuring a return on investment are critical to clients, venues need to demonstrate extreme confidence in their product. With thousands of venues listed on venuedirectory.com, and 200 consultants within 21 agencies licensed to use GRATIS, venuedirectory.com is entirely confident in its products and guarantees their success.         

“The venuedirectory.com website and GRATIS system have been designed to deliver optimum results for clients. It’s not something we leave to chance, once onboard, we work with clients to ensure they achieve what they expect from their investment with us and furthermore, we guarantee their success,” comments Begley.
    
It’s an exciting time for the meetings and events industry, a time of change and development. Each company will be judged by its response to the challenges set by their clients, some will succeed, some will fail, but ultimately the industry buyer is entitled to expect progress and those that deliver it are those that will prosper.