A routine day for the housing services staff at a Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) often entails processing hotel reservation request forms, sending guest reservation data to hotels and forwarding booking reports to meeting planners; all manual tasks that are not only time-consuming, but are prone to a high degree of error and risk.

In an effort to automate these tasks, eliminate the associated risks, and elevate its service levels to event planners and attendees, the La Crosse Area CVB in La Crosse, Wis. today announced its decision to deploy Passkey's GroupMAX ME hotel booking technology to streamline the event housing process.

"By offering event attendees and planners an enjoyable and efficient web-based hotel booking experience, GroupMAX ME will place us on the same level as any major destination," said Dave Clements, executive director of La Crosse Area CVB. "This product simplifies the meeting planner's job from start to finish."

The deployment of GroupMAX ME technology will enable the CVB's meeting planners to execute highly successful events with a number of online tools that ease the management of hotel reservations, reports and rooming lists. These include professionally designed hotel booking websites that are unique for each event and that allow guests to book their rooms via any browser or mobile device, increasing the event's ability to fulfill its hotel contract obligations.

In addition, meeting planners will now be able to monitor their event housing via a live dashboard, providing them the flexibility to increase the financial return on their contracted room blocks, mitigate their attrition risk and maximize service levels to their attendees.

With the industry's only direct connectivity with major hotel systems and online registration services, GroupMAX ME further enhances the event booking process by offering a seamless registration and accommodation experience for guests, planners and hotels.

GroupMAX ME's targeted email campaigns will help communicate pertinent information and offers, such as promotional event tickets, dining discounts or pre-paid transportation arrangements to specific groups of event attendees. This helps La Crosse Area CVB foster and build stronger relationships with its business community and hotel partners.

"La Crosse Area CVB has shown its commitment to making their destination a clear choice for any group meeting," said Greg Pesik, president and CEO of Passkey. "Our technology will not only help them attract more convention business, but streamline one of the most difficult elements of event planning."