Meeting News - November 10, 2008 - (Page 8)

Hotels & Resorts Southern Hospitality for Small Meetings Starting with Southeast properties, Starwood puts small-group inventory on Worktopia Starwood Hotels & Resorts last month made a live inventory of its small meeting rooms available for real-time booking at the website www.worktopia.com. The new partnership with Worktopia began By Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com with 63 hotels in Starwood’s southeastern U.S. region, but the firm plans to introduce more destinations in the near future. The collaboration is meant to help Starwood increase sales both in unused small meeting rooms— those that hold fewer than 100 attendees—as well as guest rooms, by reaching thousands of meeting planners worldwide, 24/7. Starwood’s group-friendly brands include Sheraton, Westin, W, Le Meridien, St. Regis, and the Luxury Collection. The technology also allows planners to arrange catering and AV equipment, in addition to booking space, in one online session. Worktopia also provides planners with attendee management capabilities, meeting activity reports, and meeting attendee enrollment tools. The new tool, which eases the small meeting booking process for planners, also makes salespeople more available to those organizing more complex group programs, said Sean Brevick, field marketing director of the Southeast and Caribbean region for Starwood. “By relying on Worktopia’s online marketing and booking solutions to fill our small meeting rooms and drive sales of lastminute inventory, our own salespeople can focus their efforts on larger, longer-lead meetings opportunities,” he said. Worktopia offers systems for meeting planners to search, compare, and book simple meetings in various facilities worldwide. The company sells private-label versions of its technology, as well as attendee management programs and corporate booking tools. 25,000 SQUARE FEET OF EVENT SPACE. HOTEL NIKKO IS THE ONLY HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO TO WIN BOTH THE 2007 PINNACLE AWARD AND THE 2007 GOLD KEY AWARD. 1.866.447.1183 :: 222 MASON STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102 AAA FOUR DIAMOND AWARD :: WWW.HOTELNIKKOSF.COM 8 MeetingNews November 10, 2008 www.meetingnews.com http://www.worktopia.com http://WWW.HOTELNIKKOSF.COM http://WWW.HOTELNIKKOSF.COM http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - November 10, 2008

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