As an added value to our Meetings & Conferences Sales Program partners, our Business Development team hosted a complimentary plug-in session about optimizing their presence on the Cvent platform and gaining insight into trends in the business event market.
The session was facilitated by Nicole Tanguay, Managing Director of HelmsBriscoe (HB). During HB's Annual Business Conference earlier this year, I had an opportunity to meet with Nicole and hear her speak about best practices and the success HB has experienced over the past year. This session sparked the idea of having Nicole present to our partners.
Nicole graciously agreed to come to Kelowna, for the first time in 25 years, to educate our partners on trends HB is seeing, including that 2023 is pacing ahead of their record-breaking 2022, which saw HB associates booking over $1.425 billion in room revenue.
Thanks to the Business Events and Conferences Restart Fund, Tourism Kelowna was able to invest in becoming a preferred partner of HB; the insight shared by Nicole during the plug-in session reaffirms our reasoning for doing so. HB now has over 1,400 associates in 60 countries, their average group size is 125 rooms on peak, and most of their programs are booked within the same year that they occur.
Nicole specifically manages a team of 40 across the Pacific Northwest USA and all of Canada. After experiencing just a little taste of Kelowna, she is eager to help us book more business and will help us spread the word to their 1,400 associates through the HB Insite platform. She is also available to help our partners review their Cvent listings, which she explained is critical to successful bids.
Tourism Kelowna has been invited to present at the regional HB retreat in February in Seattle, where we will continue to spread the word about the fantastic products and innovative business ecosystem we have in Kelowna.
Should you have any questions about the plug-in session, please reach out to me at nicolle@tourismkelowna.com. Click here for additional tips on creating winning proposals for business event RFPs.
