Rapid Expansion for Passkey
Passkey.com
, the leader in group housing and travel technology for the $120 billion meetings industry, continued its record of rapid expansion in 2000 and is poised for even greater growth, according to Roger Paradis, Passkey`s president and CEO.
Mr Paradis said that `Passkey`s realized growth and very exciting future` was recognized late in the year when it received $14.4 million in Series D funding. The investors include Sabre, which initially invested in Passkey in July of 1999, along with Galileo International, Worldspan, TravelCLICK, the provider of digital media and market data to the industry, and additional funds from Lazard Technology Partners and DRV Investment Group, previous investors.
Tim Durant, Passkey`s executive vice president and general manager for North America, said the company`s customer base and overall position in its market niches “continued to expand at a very rapid pace” during the year.
“We entered 2000 with 22 convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), meeting planners and third-party vendors as customers,” he said, “and by year-end, the Passkey-enabled customer base had grown by an incredible 155 per cent.” The number of Passkey-enabled hotels grew dramatically as well. Passkey entered 2000 with 626 properties online. At year-end, there were 1,662 Passkey-enabled properties, a staggering 255 percent increase.
Durant said that with Passkey`s core product, housing reservations booked over the Internet for conventions, trade shows and meetings also grew rapidly during the year. “Working closely with our meeting planners, housing managers and hotels, we more than doubled our internet bookings, processing 111 percent more reservations in 2000 than we did the previous year.”
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