EventClicks Appointed As Asia’s Exclusive Distributor For Event411’s On-line Registration Solutions

US-based meetings management software pioneer Event411 and Asia-Pacific’s meetings and events specialists EventClicks, have today signed an exclusive agreement to service and distribute web-based meeting management tools throughout Asia.

This agreement allows EventClicks to further enhance its portfolio of online services for corporate clients planning meetings, incentives and conferences in the Asia region. Through use of Event411’s flagship product PremierPlannerTM, EventClicks can now offer a sophisticated and efficient web-based solution, whereby the registration and housing components of an event are handled by EventClicks’ highly trained team on behalf of the planner.

Alternatively, as EventClicks is now the sole distributor of PremierPlannerTM in Asia, clients have the option of using the software to manage their delegate data themselves with full customer service and support provided by the EventClicks team.

“We feel that planners in Asia are ready to integrate an on-line element into their overall event management,” said Lawrence Howorth, Chief Operating and Financial Officer for Event411. “Despite the recent slowdown, we see enormous growth potential in this region and in fact, with current resource cutbacks, the need for automation in terms of event planning is on the increase. This alternative to manual administration is both cost-effective and efficient and allows planners to have total control over an event and its expenditure.”

Furthermore, he stressed that as Asia’s Internet adoption continues to escalate, “E-mail is increasingly becoming the preferred mode of communication between planners and delegates. Users can take advantage of the software’s sophisticated marketing tools to provide a professional and ‘hi-tech’ image of their event.”

Event411 has been in operation in the United States for over six years and was one of the earliest to initiate the web-based event registration concept. Since its full introduction into the market over a year ago, the rate of adoption of on-line registration has been high and event industry experts predict that by 2004, on-line registration will become an industry standard in the US with more than 75% of event managers implementing a web-based data management system.

“We looked at the next logical step in our development outside the US and agreed that Asia had both strong potential demand and currently limited services such as ours,” said Howorth. “We also had to ensure that our product was being properly distributed and marketed by a company that had a strong local presence with the capabilities to provide solid regional support to all clients. With EventClicks, we are joining forces with a team of event management professionals so there is strong synergy between our respective products.”

EventClicks’ Chief Executive Officer, Tom Murphy said, “Online meeting and event planning is gradually becoming more prevalent and accordingly an increasing number of sophisticated tools are becoming available. Our strategy at EventClicks is to combine technology, such as PremierPlannerTM, with full service support to the extent that our clients are provided with the option of outsourcing the entire data management of their event to us if they wish. I believe it is this type of service which will further encourage corporations to embrace meetings technology.”

By implementing on-line registration tools to the event management process, corporations are able to save costs, precious time and resources. Recent statistics from a study conducted by industry analysts reveals that companies report between 30 percent to 70 percent reductions in expenses when integrating web-based data management software into their event organising process. (Source: Meeting Professionals International, PhoCusWright)

To demonstrate the degree of cost-savings, Event411 has also developed the ROI (Return on Investment) Calculator for corporations to see first-hand the substantial savings they would incur through the usage of a software like PremierPlannerTM. Through the use of the meeting industry’s first ROI Calculator, planners can demonstrate, the ultimate value in hard-dollar savings a consolidated meeting-planning tool like PremierPlannerTM can offer to organisations.