March/April 2010
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Cover Story
MEETINGSEASY MAKES RFPS SIMPLE!
Last summer, Edmonton became the 5th Canadian city to start using the award winning e-RFP web based meeting and convention planning software MeetingsEasy. MeetingsEasy was launched in Ottawa 3 years ago, and Moncton, Richmond, and Kelowna are also using this groundbreaking technology. MeetingsEasy won the National Award for Tourism Excellence, "Innovator of the Year Award" in 2006 from the Tourism Association of Canada.
MeetingsEasy is a unique tool that automatically allows meeting planners to research, request and receive proposals, plan save and update meeting details instantly. MeetingsEasy then takes this information and automatically distributes it to the industry partners that have signed up into the system. The industry partners respond individually, and the program collects the responses for the planner to view online. Edmonton Tourism has a complete view of the entire process which allows them to work with both the meeting planners and the industry partners to ensure that the transfer of information is efficient, effective and easy for everyone involved. MeetingsEasy is the first software to bring the entire meeting planning process to the web in an easy to use fashion. Other software available has proved cumbersome to use. Brent Beatty, Senior Manager, Meetings & Business Travel, summarized the ease of use as changing from a “DOS operating system to a Macintosh. This system is very easy to use.”
Mr. Beatty is strongly encouraging that all partners visit the MeetingsEasy website at http://www.meetingseasy.ca/edmonton/index.php. Once on the site, he recommends that partners create a planner login so that they can see how easily the system works from the meeting planner perspective. In particular, Mr. Beatty would like to partners to notice the amount of categories present in the system. Partners are broken down into 26 different categories including hotels, restaurants, caterers, transportation, attractions, museums, outdoor activities, and audio-visual specialists. Any possible service required during the course of a meeting or convention is represented in these categories.
Another area for partners to notice is the profiles that partners can create on MeetingsEasy. Basic profiles include a picture for the partner profile and full contact information along with a description of services offered by the partner. More extensive profiles can include price lists, menus, floor plans and anything else that a partner might want to send to an interested client. How extensive the profile is up to the individual partner. Partners signed up with MeetingsEasy can also change their profile information at anytime. This ability gives maximum flexibility to partners to keep their information current. MeetingsEasy is a tool which can lead to an increase in meetings and convention business in Edmonton. In 3 years, MeetingsEasy has generated 17,000 RFPs for Ottawa. To register as a supplier, please send the name of the person at your organization that would be available to receive and monitor information on the system along with their email address to Heidi Andrews (HAndrews@edmonton.com ). A supplier account will then be created for you and then you can create your organizations profile. Usernames, passwords and profiles can be changed at anytime. So register now to take advantage of this leading edge program!
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