Online Group Booking Comes Of Age

By Adam Kirby, Associate Editor -- Hotels, 8/1/2008

 Marriott International processes hundreds of thousands of electronic requests for proposals annually, roughly a third of which are submitted outside normal sales hours. The ensuing lag time until a hotel responds decreases the conversion rate. “We needed to respond to those (inquiries) as quickly as possible, because we were just overwhelming and deluging our hotels with opportunities,” says Geoff Heuchling, Marriott’s senior director of business-to-business e-commerce.

Marriott has launched QuickBook, a Web microsite that lets events users search for group blocks of 10 to 25 rooms, sorted by available dates and locations, for up to seven nights, and book them on the spot. QuickBook also provides access to space dimensions and floor plans of each hotel’s meeting space, and Marriott plans to soon allow the meeting spaces to be booked online as well.

QuickBook functionality covers most properties in the North America portfolio across eight brands—Marriott, Renaissance, JW Marriott, Courtyard, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn and TownePlace Suites. The program will expand to cover the global portfolio by next year.

Since QuickBook’s soft launch last year, Marriott has seen an encouraging amount of repeat business generated by the software. “It has been viral, word-of-mouth,” Heuchling says. “That has been a very happy thing for us.”