Hotel Online Special Report 
After Two Year Search the Tampa Convention and Visitors Association Selects Passkey.com for Internet Housing Services BOSTON – Feb. 17, 2000 — Passkey.com, Inc., the leading provider of Internet-based integrated group hotel reservation, event registration and travel solutions for the meetings and convention industry, has added to its growing client list of convention and visitors bureaus and hospitality industry leaders with the addition of the Tampa Convention and Visitors Association (TCVA).
Norwood Smith, vice president of sales of the TCVA , said the selection of Passkey.com and its software solution for housing services ended a search that began some two years ago.
“We serve one of the most attractive and popular sites for meetings and conventions, as well as tourism in Florida,” said Smith. “The Association wanted an easy-to-use yet robust solution that was Internet-based. We also needed a system that could be readily used by managers of conventions and meetings, by attendees coming to those events, and by local hotel properties. After extensive research, including noting the popularity of the solution among other CVBs, we chose Passkey.com, which we believe meets all of our needs.”
Convention Bookings in Tampa Area Up 40%
Smith said Tampa’s popularity as a business venue is soaring. “We had a 600,000-square foot convention center, but didn’t have an adjacent headquarters hotel. That will change in March when the 717-room Tampa Marriott Waterside opens across the street from the center, providing an additional 50,000-square feet of meeting space to our inventory. Since the announcement of the building of the hotel,” he said, “convention bookings have jumped 40 percent!”
17th Convention Bureau Contract for Passkey.com
Roger Paradis, president and CEO of Passkey.com, said Tampa is the 17th bureau to join the Passkey.com CVB Network by contracting for its services.
“Earning the confidence of the leadership of the Tampa bureau is very rewarding,” he said. “As Passkey.com continues to grow, we are adding services, including integrated travel through our new call center, and integrated registration. We know CVBs, including the one serving the Tampa area, and attendees, will benefit from our one-stop shop services, making managing the process simpler and more efficient and making registering for a meeting, along with booking travel and hotel rooms, faster, easier, and, we think, even fun.”
Passkey.com connects all industry participants using Web-based software and a shared, centralized reservation database to automate and simplify making, managing and acknowledging group reservations.
Passkey.com provides Internet-based convention housing management and processing technology to a growing list of convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs) including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charleston (SC), Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Nashville, Northern Kentucky, Orlando/Orange County, Providence/Warwick, St. Louis, Salt Lake, Seattle/King County, and Tampa/Hillsborough, and meeting planners across the U.S. In 1999, Passkey.com formed two alliances: with Sabre , which also made an equity investment in Passkey.com, to co-develop and build an industry-unique interface combining air, car and hotel resources from Sabre with Passkey.com’s group hotel room block management system, and with Pegasus Systems. Passkey.com, Inc., is headquartered in Quincy, Mass.
Contact: Sasha Galland Corporate Communications Manager Passkey.com, Inc. 617-328-4800 x238 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.passkey.com Also See: Nashville CVB Using Internet-enabled Convention and Group Hotel Reservation Solutions Provided by Passkey.com / May 1999 The Denver CVB Web Site Utilizes Pegasus’ Private Label Internet Reservations Service / Oct 1999 b-there.com & Datalex-Web Ventures Partner to Integrate Air Booking Engine with Event Planning Tools / Aug 1999