Northstar Meetings Group

Omni Hotels Expands Instant Group Booking to All Properties

Groups360's GroupSync Instant Booking will roll out at all of the company's hotels, for small meetings requiring 10 to 25 guest rooms.

by Michael J. Shapiro

December 8, 2023

The recently renovated Omni Homestead Resort

The ability to "instantly" book room blocks for small meetings continues to expand to more venues, as Omni Hotels and Resorts is now rolling out Group360's GroupSync Instant Booking at all of its properties. Omni, which currently has 51 properties in the U.S. and Canada, had been piloting the technology at four of its hotels, all in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Instant Booking allows planners to forego a formal request-for-proposal process by providing bookable real-time rates and availability for small groups. Omni is rolling out the ability to book 10 to 25 guest rooms for small meetings, with plans to add Instant Booking functionality for meeting space at some point in 2024.

Omni joins Accor, Hilton, IHG, Marriott International and Premier Inns, all of which provide some degree of Instant Booking functionality through GroupSync. Early this year Marriott became the first to launch the technology for both rooms and meeting space — as well as F&B and A/V — across about 1,500 of its hotels in the U.S. and North America. Hilton has offered Instant Booking for group guest rooms only since 2021. Each hospitality company continues to expand Instant Booking functionality as demand warrants.

According to Groups360, that demand is strong: There are now more than 1.7 million guest rooms worldwide available for group Instant Booking, and about $20 million in Instant Booking transactions have taken place through GroupSync in 2023.

"Omni's expansion is concrete evidence of our shared philosophy of making group travel simpler," said Groups360 CEO Kemp Gallineau. "We're excited to see how this partnership will impact meeting and event planners by making hotel sourcing faster and easier, as well as the efficiencies this will bring to Omni's sales organization."

Hotel negotiations and slow response times to RFPs have been significant sources of frustration for planners, but those difficulties have eased in the fourth quarter, according to the December Northstar/Cvent Meetings Industry PULSE Survey, released this week. Whether or not Instant Booking solutions from Groups360 and Cvent have played a role in improved efficiencies is difficult to say — but planner sentiment does indicate processes are improving.