Marriott International has launched a new initiative to make meeting planners’ lives easier: European Convention Network (ECN). Its purpose is to provide planners with a single point of contact for simplified access to all of the resources within the network, leading to a more personalized process, improved efficiency and greater cost effectiveness.
Made up of 14 convention hotels in gateway cities across Europe, the network offers more than 613,500 sq. ft. of meeting space and 7,800 guest rooms. Marriott Rome Park, capable of handling up to 2,800 attendees, is the largest property included in the network..
The selected hotels are located in top meetings destinations such as London, Madrid, Paris and Berlin. Several Marriott brands are represented, including JW Marriott, Marriott Hotels and Renaissance Hotels, and all have extensive experience holding large-scale meetings and events.
“Our customers have told us they want to save time when planning large annual or biannual events in different cities by having one account manager that works with them regularly and understands their business,” said Pauline Bronkhorst, head of European Convention Network. “They do not want to contact individual hotels and explain working practices, but have one point of contact that values their business, and knows who they are and how they source and contract their event.”
The network offers other new features, including online planning tools and apps that allow organizers to manage events in real-time from any Web-enabled device. In order to consistently maintain high standards for customer service and events, ECN also conducts a review after each event to identify strengths and weaknesses and develop strategies to improve the process for future events.
ECN is modeled on Marriott’s U.S.-based Convention and Resort Network (CRN), which was established 25 years ago for the express purpose of streamlining processes for meeting planners. Today, the CRN represents more than 6.7 million sq. ft. and 62,000 guest rooms.
