Northstar

JAN-FEB 2018 43 meetings & conventions • mcmag-asia.com Meeting the mark Words Esther Faith Lew HRS's newly launched small meetings solution for Southeast Asia gains traction, following its success in Europe. Managing Director Emmanuel Ebray shares more. I t is not just a sourcing platform that books venues at the best rate for small meeting planners. It is much more sophisticated than that. The aim is to help procurement managers take control of the various processes involving a meeting. "Meetago is designed to provide frictionless support in terms of sourcing and integrating it with payments. The transparency of this holistic system fulfills corporate guidelines for containment, compliancy, duty of care in safety and security and even cyber security," shares Emmanuel Ebray, managing director, Southeast Asia, India and Korea, HRS. He added that Meetago helps to generate information such as GST and VAT recovery and integrate them into expense management tools. Procurement strategies are integrated and aligned, allowing planners and managers to use Meetago's online RFP function together with leading online booking engines, which means smooth data flow and seamless connectivity. Meetago has been widely adopted by HRS clients since its launch in Europe in January 2015, leading to a cumulative doubling of transactions each quarter since then. It is now used in 18 countries, and is a valuable component in expense management. Corporate compliancy and cost savings are the twin boosters that have given Meetago the velocity in adoption rate. Savings of up to 17 percent have been reported by companies in Europe and Asia. Although the platform establishes straight-forward automated processes cancelled, and five percent are cancelled at the last minute." Such trends require corporates to utilize the best of technology that makes their jobs easier while still being able to benefit from the expertise of consultants in managing their end-to-end hotel solutions. HRS aims to be the partner that walks with clients in navigating the sea of changes. for small meetings, corporates who require assistance are able to rely on a network of experts in China, Europe, US and Southeast Asia. HRS is also able to manage the full spectrum of the meetings process on clients' behalf. Not just data, but intelligence Ebray shared that HRS's vision is to provide market intelligence to its clients that will result in significant cost savings and value add. "With 40,000 companies and millions of transactions and rates that are stored on our system, we will be consolidating our data and using them strategically." Harnessing such smart data will be one of the key focus of HRS's R&D centre in Shanghai. The future of hotel solutions revolves around innovation and technology, and will no doubt change the way procurement is traditionally approached. The mergers and acquisitions of hotel chains have also dramatically changed the playing field. "This is changing the balance of negotiating power from buyers to sellers. That is why HRS intends to introduce e-auction tools for sourcing meetings so that the balance is maintained in a more healthy ratio," says Ebray. Ebray also shared that such consolidation of hotel chains leads to changes in policy, one of which concerns hotel cancellation. "One of the biggest hotel chains has just announced that hotel cancellations within two days of check-in will incur a charge. This has a huge impact on corporate spend. Data shows that 17 percent of bookings are "With 40,000 companies and millions of transactions and rates that are stored on our system, we will be consolidating our data and using them strategically." – EMMANUEL EBRAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR

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