HITEC 2001 Interviews - Passkey - Mr. Tim Durant - Executive VP/GM of North America - Tim Talks About Passkey's HotelDirect Product Launch at HITEC

HITEC 2001 - Day 2 Interview

HITEC 2001 - Day 1 Interview

Passkey is a metamediary for the $120 billion meetings and conventions industry. It provides integrated, web-based enabling applications for group housing and travel. Passkey has enabled hotels, convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), global distribution systems (GDS), travel agencies, associations, corporations, meetings RFP engines and registration vendors. It is the only group management technology that offers a live group reservation system throughout the housing process, accessible 24/7 to attendees, participating hotels, meeting planners, CVBs, and housing and travel suppliers.

About Tim Durant
Executive Vice President and General Manager North America
Passkey.com, Inc.

Tim Durant is Executive Vice President and General Manager of North America at Passkey.com, Inc. He oversees all aspects of operations, including marketing and sales, and continues to build strategic partnerships in the hotel and travel industry.

Tim was the third full-time employee at Passkey, joining the two founders in 1997 as Vice President of Business Development, responsible for building new partnerships and strategic business relationships. Promoted to Vice President of Operations, he was charged with customer relations and support, call center operations, product/services fulfillment and technology enhancement implementation and rollout. He was promoted to his current position in January 2001.

Prior to Passkey, Tim was Director of Sales and Business Development at Switchboard, Inc. He was a member of the team that enabled Switchboard Inc. to become the 15th most active web site on the Internet.

Tim brings more than 12 years of experience in technology and the Internet to Passkey. His background includes military technology training, consulting at Digital Equipment, evaluating technology-based business plans and working with management teams as a venture capitalist.

Tim has a BA from Boston University and an MBA from Babson College Olin School of Management. He is a member of IACVB, MPI, IAEM and PCMA; and currently sits on the IAEM Technology Council. He was a featured speaker at the PCMA Annual Meeting 2000, IAEM, PhoCusWright Investor's Conference 2000, Meetings Vision 2000, and the Washington D.C. Conference on Tourism 2001.

Passkey HotelDirect automates group business via an online application. Designed for single-property meetings, HotelDirect enables hotels to create custom reservation Web pages tailored to each event. The Web site allows simultaneous and direct access to group room blocks for hotels and detailed management information for meeting planners. This real-time accessibility is key in maximizing the hotel's efficiency in managing group reservations and provides multiple benefits.

• Increases timeliness of information and reporting, allowing more flexibility for hotel staff, meeting planners and attendees.
• Minimizes costs of inaccuracies traditionally associated with labor-intensive manual processes.
• Reduces attrition by having the ability to exchange information right up to arrival.
• Assesses contract performance, block pick-up and comprehensive group histories which can be utilized as indicators for future forecasting.

To learn more about the cutting-edge technology of Passkey HotelDirect and how TravelCLICK can improve your hotel's competitive edge, call (847) 969-0820 or email us today at [email protected] or go to the Hotel Direct Web site.