Jeff Duncan is a Business in Vancouver Top Forty under 40 winner!

A major milestone was achieved this week when Jeff Duncan, Meetingmax President and COO, was announced as a 2010 Business in Vancouver Top Forty under 40 winner.

This years theme was Recipes for Success and it appears that Meetingmax has the winning ingredients. In the article Jeff states "there was a point when I realized I could obtain any client I wanted to if I worked hard enough at it"; obtaining new clients is something he has clearly put into action as "the number of hotel transactions the company's software facilitates has grown 600% in the last three years", no easy feat. 

Check out page 24 for all the details.

Join us for the 2011 Meetingmax UNconvention!

We want to officially invite you to the 2011 Meetingmax UNconvention! We have created a great line up of learning sessions for you this year. Take a look at the attached invite to view what we have planned.

                                         Click here to view the 2011 invitation

Small Market Meetings Magazine - Smaller CVBs are Adding Online Housing

This week Meetingmax, and some of our clients, were highlighted in an article in Small Market Meetings titled Smaller CVBs are Adding Online Housing.

Check out a caption of the article below:

When it comes to handling hotel room bookings for larger meetings and sports groups, more convention and visitor bureaus in smaller cities are offering online housing bureaus.

Adding the service — used by meetings that require multiple hotels — is one way smaller cities can stay competitive.

An online housing bureau streamlines management of convention housing. Instead of working with staffs at several hotels in a city, the planners work with their contact at the CVB.

A link to the housing bureau is provided for each group’s website. The housing information found at the link is tailored to each specific group, based on the hotels where it has room blocks. Attendees visit the site to peruse the hotels available, choose their rooms and make their reservations. The site is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can return to the site to make changes if needed.

Planners can easily get reports on room pickup and monitor their group’s housing.

“They have the ability to track who is attending and to drive attendees into the block of rooms to avoid attrition,” said Samantha Jones, Director of Client Services for Meetingmax, which launched its online housing product about eight years ago.

For the full story click here

Meetingmax Launches Referral Program

Many of you have recommended the Meetingmax System to potential clients and we thought we should reward you for your outstanding loyalty to us. Meetingmax has launched its first ever Referral Program which includes many exciting incentives for you! Simply connect us with prospects and you’ll have the opportunity to gain some very unique rewards.

Here is a brief run through on the rules of the contest:

1. For each referral you provide Meetingmax that results in a Demo being booked you will receive 100 points
2. For each referral you provide Meetingmax that results in a signed license you will receive an additional 500 points

Points will be accumulated between October 14^th, 2010 and April 15^th, 2011 (2 weeks before our Annual UNconvention). Points can be redeemed in two ways; if you are attending our UNconvention, they can be redeemed for special “Vancouver Experiences” while you are here in our city. If you are unable to join us in the spring, you can redeem your points for something from our “Bring Vancouver Home” prize sheet.

May the best Meetingmax user win!

Meetingmax signs Tacoma Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau

Meetingmax announced today the signing of an agreement with the Tacoma Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB). Meetingmax systems will handle all online housing reservations needs for the CVB. With 87 hotels containing over 6,000 hotel rooms, the Tacoma Regional CVB was looking for a system which could simplify the process of reserving room blocks for a variety of hotels. Meetingmax's system was selected based on it user-friendly interface and the fact that it does not have minimum booking requirements.

"Meetingmax's system has an excellent reputation within the travel industry," says Shauna Lunde, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Tacoma Regional CVB. "Meeting planners have had positive experiences with the system in other destinations and have been requesting the service from us."

The Tacoma Regional CVB made the decision in order to meet the growing number of calls from meeting planners for a simplified housing solution. "In today's competitive market, having an online housing reservation system is another service that CVB's can offer their meeting planners," says Jeff Duncan, COO, Meetingmax. "It's a value added benefit that can help Tacoma and Pierce County attract business."

VIFF attendees get the Sundance treatment

While organizers of the Vancouver International Film Festival have countless details to worry about, this year they won’t be worrying about hotel reservations. As a festival sponsor, Vancouver‐based Meetingmax will be providing its online housing reservation technology to manage room bookings for visiting filmmakers, VIPs and guests. This follows the successful use of the online platform at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

“We were looking for a way to make sure that housing arrangements for our guests would run seamlessly and were impressed with the results that Meetingmax produced at Sundance,” said Betty Verkuil, Director of Development, VIFF. “Having the support of local companies for our festival is critical for our success. We’re pleased to have technology developed by a Vancouver business play a key role in the festival’s logistics.”

With multiple hotels providing rooms for the festival, VIFF organizers wanted to simplify the process of reserving rooms for VIPs and guests. Instead of having to use each hotel’s system, organizers can manage all hotel bookings through one central portal.

“Our partnership with VIFF will allow potential clients to explore the customizable features of our online booking platform,” says Jeff Duncan, COO, Meetingmax. “In turn, our system will streamline the housing reservations process for festival organizers, which can otherwise be an unnecessarily time-consuming element of event management.”

This will mark one of the first times that the system will be used in Vancouver by local hotels and event planners.

South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority teams with Meetingmax

As part of its ongoing investment in technology, the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority (CVA) has engaged Meetingmax Systems to handle its online housing reservation needs.  

“While convention traffic is important to us, our region’s core strength lies in our ability to host major sports tournaments,” says Speros Batistatos, President and CEO of the South Shore CVA. “But this type of business requires that we book teams and their families into numerous hotels across the region. Meetingmax’s system helps us streamline that process for our customers and hoteliers.”

“Our system helps South Shore build relationships and alleviate their clients’ stress by not having to run around and contract with different hotels,” says Jeff Duncan, COO, Meetingmax. “We can provide their event planners with quantitative data that they can use to plan next year’s event. For example, by tracking bookings, we know that their teams want to book at hotels with a pool, that offer continental breakfast, or are close to certain facilities.”

As part of its selection process, South Shore looked at several other housing systems but ultimately selected Meetingmax for its user-friendly interface, customizable features, and affordable per-reservation fee.