The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network
Association (HEDNA) will be sponsoring a Group Panel at TravelCom/Res-Expo in Las Vegas on Thursday, April 5th.

The panel, entitled, “Groups: The Next ‘Big Thing’ Online” will feature moderator: Edward Perry, Director, E-Commerce, WORLDHOTELS and panelists: Paul Bahnick, Vice President - IT, Travel Impressions; Diane Bozicevich, Vice President - Operations, Omega World Travel & Omega Meetings & Incentives; Scott Harness, CEO, GroupTravelPlanet; and Duncan Kennedy, Director, Starwood Hotels

The panel will discuss how the complexity of booking groups and meetings that have kept this segment of the industry off-line for the most part and how that is about to change. Several new market entrants and technology developments have jumpstarted online group bookings.

Group reservations have been costly to process for hotels and airlines because of the inherent changes in group bookings, RFPs and call backs, unique billing requirements, adding and deleting rooms. Hoteliers are now seeing the benefits of allowing access to their group inventory for smaller groups and meetings to free up their sales staff and focus on the large event business.

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