Michael Begley, Managing Director of venuedirectory.com, had for a long time recognised Angie Mason’s achievements and good standing within the Meetings, Incentive, Conference and Events industry (MICE).

Her role as Director of Absolute Corporate Events in Dorset complements other prominent highlights of Angie’s career to date as a previous chairman of the Hotel Booking Agents Association (HBAA) and recent board member of Meeting Professionals International (MPI). Angie and Michael’s mutual respect of each other’s business ethics, previous working relationship and enthusiasm for the events and hospitality business, inspired Michael to approach Angie with a proposal for a new and innovative meeting and event system. A decision which according to Angie “Just made good business sense.”

Michael was looking for a partnership to drive forward this new booking system from venuedirectory.com called GRATIS - a pioneering and dynamic new business system for both the agency and corporate markets. GRATIS was breaking new ground for the UK’s original and market-leading venue data management company, with the aim of maintaining venuedirectory.com at the forefront of an event planners wish list of “indispensible tools of the trade.” Two prominent figures, each successful within the industry sector, have collaboratively generated a much needed success story in a difficult and challenging economic climate.

Absolute Corporate Events is recognised as one of the UK’s leading event management specialists for venue finding, bedroom reservations, event management and incentives, with an impressive portfolio of independent and corporate event buyers. The installation and licence to use the web-based GRATIS system affords Absolute Corporate Events and their client base (who can directly access venue search functions) detailed and comprehensive information. Venue search results provide full contact details, data and colour imagery as a customised record of shortlisted venues, matching simple or in depth preselected criteria drawn from the largest venue database in the UK – venuedirectory.com. And it doesn’t stop there. GRATIS fills a significant niche in the market by allowing license holders to use the same system to not only search for venues, but also to create proposals, track activity for the event life cycle, draw bespoke reports and produce detailed invoices and subsequent commission claims at the touch of a button.

Angie said, “The best thing about GRATIS is that it saves us an incredible amount of time, and with 2 locations and the team on site at events the fact that it is web-based means we are connected wherever we need to be. This makes the system unique and pretty much essential nowadays, compared to how we worked previously.”

Each client’s requirements for GRATIS is different. The system is programmed to perform a myriad of different variations for searching, tracking and reporting and can also be sufficiently made bespoke to include logo’s and imagery to produce exactly what the user stipulates, maintaining a clients corporate image and business needs. Michael and Angie initially set clear objectives to ensure a smooth transition of business from their existing system to GRATIS, whilst developing new business process to harness the speed and strength of GRATIS as a new sales tool for potential independent and corporate event buyers.

To facilitate the installation of GRATIS and licensing into Angie’s offices, Angie says, “Michael and the GRATIS team provided and continue to provide fantastic support and aftercare.” She went on to say, “We received two days training in our offices and we maintain a close relationship with Michael and his team. I like that our staff feel comfortable to offer feedback or seek advice from the GRATIS team who are always at the end of the phone.”

Michael states, “Listening to our client’s needs and their satisfaction is imperative to the level of service we believe we should provide, which is why we interact with all GRATIS licence holders by telephone, site visits, message boards, email, newsletters and twice yearly forums. The forums allow all our agents to get together with their ideas, thoughts and outline a needs analysis for future enhancements. Both GRATIS agents and venues interact through the system, which is another facet that makes us unique. Our clients, like Absolute Corporate Events and meeting planners as well as the thousands of venues with listings on venuedirectory.com, all use the system differently.”

Michael added, “Our aim is to increase business revenue and levels of efficiency for all parties, achieve outstanding levels of customer care, whilst also generating a healthy profit margin for both our clients and our business.”