‘venuedirectory.com is the conduit between venues and agencies’

Richard Parkin founded venue-directory.com in 1993. By 2005 competition was tough, with more and more services offering venue data online. He saw very clearly that something very special was needed to distinguish his service from all the others.
At that very time Michael Begley became free, as the full service agency he worked for had been taken over by a large enterprise. Michael now 43, had started work as Sales & Marketing Manager at a hotel near his home on the South Coast, had then worked on MICE marketing for Best Western, seeing its turnover in that market sector rise from £1m to £13m in five years, and had then worked for Venue Resource Group.
Over a lunch, Richard told Michael about what he was seeking and Michael was able to suggest a solution. This was the marriage between Richard’s database and the booking software that Michael had developed over five years, which permitted users from both sides of the equation to input their own updates. On the one hand venues could feed in the latest information about their facilities and availability, whilst on the other the system could store information about what facilities the users needed, what enquiries they had made, what bookings they had confirmed and which venues they were using.
Michael, who is now MD of venuedirectory.com, with Richard semi-retired, is able to look back over three years of hectic operations and a very successful track record.
‘Marrying the two systems that used two different computer languages was like translating a masterpiece from Chinese into French. But eventually, after about nine months slog, it all came together and I am proud to be able to report that in the year ending 30 June 2010 Venuedirectory.com processed enquiries worth £270m.
The database has records of 23,000 venues, of which about 9,000 are in the UK. ‘The 26th client agency signed up yesterday and the 27th is coming in to sign next week. We are adding users at an average rate of about one per month. The venues get a basic entry free and can enhance their entry for between £500 and £1000 per annum and 75% do this. Agencies pay a fee of £800 per user per year, which also covers training and support.
‘There are massive benefits for venues, which can establish, for example, how many enquiries the system produced, how many converted to business and, if not, which venue got the business eventually. This is all vital business information and unique to venuedirectory.com.’
The service ‘sits between venues and agencies’, as Michael puts it. It is not representing just one to the other, but each to each, acting as a conduit between both sides.
‘Twice a year we host a forum for our users’, adds Michael ‘and they tell us what further development they would like to see in the booking system. This all results in about six to eight updates a year, adding services and simplifying usage.’

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