Just add people for instant meeting

Malaysia – In an unconventional and innovative move to shift spare inventory the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre is marketing spare rooms in a similar way airlines get rid of spare seats, at the last minute.

The TenOnCall campaign, developed by the Centre's marketing and sales team allows clients to walk in off the street and start a meeting room with no booking and is designed to serve an untapped short lead time market.

The TenOnCall feature is a smaller-sized meeting facility for two to 250 people.

“We were looking to a creative and profitable way to improve yield and the utilisation of meeting venues within the Centre,” said Angeline Lue, director of sales and marketing, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

“We developed an integrated marketing and sales plan for TenOnCall, including the appropriate marketing collateral and public relations strategy,” she said, adding that for the next two-weeks after the launch, the Centre invited clients and partners to preview the room and utilise the facilities.

In addition, the Centre’s website was revamped to incorporate its latest offering and Lue said so far, the tactic has proven to be successful as it has already garnered a consistent occupancy of over 40%, to date.

There is still much dependence on the word-of-mouth method to get more clients to experience the facility.

When the Centre was launched in June 2005, Lue said there was numerous short-lead bookings but the need for a feature like the TenOnCall, was clear in the market where clients had the opportunity to select the Centre’s pre-set room and execute a meeting on-the-spot.

“After much research from clients and study of the various spaces available at the centre, we decided to offer level 4 as an alternative meeting space for TenOnCall,” she said.