When it comes to hosting events for Amadeus, it’s my job not only to provide great event experiences, but also to know where everybody is, where they are going, and the best way for them to get there.
This can, naturally, present challenges.
When events grow in size, attracting dozens of delegates, it can be a challenge to effectively keep track of them all using manual methods. With people arriving on different flights, staying for varying durations, and potentially headed to different hotels, it can become complicated. Quickly.
Right now, planning for some corporate events - such as trade shows, seminars or presentations - and the accompanying travel; can be two disconnected activities, making the process even more complicated. Colleagues have to reach out to others to ensure they are synchronized, booking the same flights and hotel or sharing transfers from the airport or the train station.
As corporate travel bounces back and the appetite for in-person events continues to grow, planners will have their work cut out.
Event Manager from Cytric Easy by Amadeus is a new tool to help simplify the process, bringing clarity to face-to-face events. Here, I want to explore the solution a little and explain how it can help.
Cytric Easy by Amadeus
Cytric Easy has proved an asset to corporate travelers since weunveiledit alongside our strategic partners at Microsoft last year. The online booking and expense management tool is embedded in Microsoft 365, where users can plan trips and share travel details with colleagues without ever leaving Microsoft Teams.
I can vouch for it! As a frequent business traveler, booking my trips is now faster, easier, and more collaborative than before. I can collaborate and coordinate with my colleagues, by sharing my itinerary, sharing a ride from the airport, or simply meeting at destination all just using the chat in Microsoft Teams. I even get a reminder when my trip is over to claim my expenses back!
Event Manager now brings even more functionality to Cytric Easy.
The solution enables event planners to provide a collaborative, seamless way to allow travelers and non-travelers to participate in an event with real-time information, including trip recommendations, the event agenda, or related documentation and useful links.
The functionality has the ability to create a dedicated channel in Microsoft Teams, centralizing in one single place everything to do with the event, including a dashboard to store event-related information. This can include up-to-the-minute data on which attendees are taking which flight, where they are staying, and even which transfer they are taking.
This makes it easier to coordinate among attendees by sharing any itinerary updates or location changes, keeping everyone in the loop. Event Manager can also contribute to duty of care, allowing organizers to see where people are on a trip, reaching out to them if there is any disruption, for example.
Planning
Event planners (and everyone attending the event) will be able to see at a glance where everyone is staying, simplifying the task of arranging, for example, transfers to different venues without having to exchange information with travelers. This empowers people attending the event and lightens the load on the event planner. All of this will be enhanced in the future by integration with existing Cytric Easy features, including ShareMyTransfer.
This is planning with global visibility among all event participants, offering sharing and booking capabilities to help users reduce time spent planning events and trips with colleagues, improving their experience.
At the same time, organizers will have a dedicated channel for each event, open only to selected parties, which can be used to share sensitive information, perhaps including budgets or similar.
Finally, Event Manager pulls in other useful Microsoft tools, such as Forms. For example, if you are an event manager and trying to get the dietary requirements of employees, this can all be done through Microsoft Teams. To ensure data protection these results can be kept private for only the form owner or those who need to be in the know.
In Action
Of course, the proof is in the pudding – and as Head of Global Events for Amadeus, I have plenty of opportunity to put our innovative technology to the test.
As we begin to prepare for another busy event season, we are working to bring our teams together from around the world. Event Manager in Cytric Easy from Amadeus is an invaluable tool in this process, giving us instant visibility over the plans, routes and accommodation options of our colleagues.
With the appropriate privacy safeguards in place, the information is open to travelers and non-travelers alike – this is a collaborative channel, built within the solutions users deploy every day. It is designed to maximize interactions across teams.
We know who is arriving, when, where they are staying, who they are traveling with, and what is on their agenda. With this information in hand, we can coordinate more effectively, maximizing the value of each trip for each member of our team. My teams are spared repetitive tasks, such as repeatedly sharing timings of the event, the agenda or hotel information. All of this can be stored in Event Manager, right in Microsoft Teams, available when you need it.
At Amadeus, the traveler is at the heart of everything we do, and this innovative new solution reduces the friction we encounter when planning group travel. I’m sure this will be a welcome development for many of my colleagues working in event organization across the travel sector and beyond.
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