Matching program and system for corporate meeting planners and hospitality providers

• US 7,685,058 B2
• Filed: 08/20/2007
• Issued: 03/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: HJJ Incorporated
• Original Assignee: HJJ Incorporated
• Inventors: Etkin, James M.
• Primary Examiner(s): CAMPEN, KELLY SCAGGS
• Application Number:
  US11/841,074
• Publication Number:
  US 20070288353A1
• Time in Patent Office: 946 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/36.R, 705/38, 705/37, 705/39, 705/14, 705/5, 705/26, 705/27, 705/1, 705/9, 705/10, 705/8, 235/380
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

The computerized bidding method matches hospitality facility data and meeting requirement data, permits the posting of offers and responsive bidding by both hospitality facility vendors and meeting planners, and facilitates the exchange of data. In a simplified system, meeting planner requirement data (at least meeting planner contact data, facilities requirement data, date range data and price data) is matched to hotel or hospitality vendor data (at least vendor contact data, location data, room quantity data, date available range data, and meeting room data), and the system sends planner offer data to matching hospitality vendors without disclosing the planner contact data. Thereafter, the hotel vendors respond and the responses are sent to the meeting planner posting the offer. The presentation to the planner may be in spread sheet form, sorted by pre-set criteria.

Claims

1. A computerized system for matching hospitality facility data, representing vendors furnishing hotel facilities, meeting room facilities or other hospitality facilities, with requirement data, representing respective necessities of a plurality of meeting planners for a corresponding plurality of meetings or events, the computerized system comprising:

means for storing and maintaining said hospitality facility data and said requirement data in a database on said at least one server, said hospitality facility data at least including vendor contact data, room quantity data and amenity data;

means for gathering requirement offer data and planner contact data from said plurality of meeting planners, the gathered requirement offer data including facilities requirements data;

means for matching requirement offer data with said hospitality facility data;

means for presenting blinded requirement offer data, without revealing the identity of the corresponding meeting planner who supplied said requirement offer data, to vendors associated with said hospitality facility data which match said facilities requirements data;

means for gathering specific hospitality facility data from a group of responding vendors relative to said blinded requirement offer data;

means for presenting, to said corresponding meeting planner who supplied said requirement offer data, blinded specific hospitality facility data responsive to said facilities requirements data;

means for permitting said corresponding meeting planner to select blinded specific hospitality facility data representing a predetermined number of vendors;

means for exchanging contact data between said predetermined number of vendors and said corresponding meeting planner supplying said requirement offer data;

means for determining if said corresponding meeting planner cannot fulfill necessities corresponding to said requirement offer data, and, in such event, reactivating said means for permitting the selection of said vendors while excluding at least one of said predetermined number of vendors;

means for gathering facilities offer data from at least one vendor offeror to supply hospitality facilities, and for storing said facilities offer data in said database, said facilities offer data including at least a hospitality facility feature and offer price data;

means for presenting blinded facilities offer data to one or more inquiring meeting planners;

means for gathering specific facilities requirement data from a responsive plurality of meeting planners relative to said facilities offer data;

means for presenting, to said vendor offeror, blinded specific requirement data responsive to said facilities offer data;

means for permitting said vendor offeror to select blinded specific requirement data representing a further predetermined number of said responsive meeting planners,

means for exchanging contact data between said further predetermined number of said responsive meeting planners and vendor offeror; and

,

means for determining if said vendor offeror cannot fulfill the corresponding offer to supply hospitality facilities, and, in such event, reactivating said means for presenting said blinded facilities offer data step while excluding at least one of said further predetermined number of responsive meeting planners.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said predetermined number of vendors presented to meeting planners with requirement offer data is one from the group of one, two and three, and said further predetermined number of responsive meeting planners presented to said vendor offerror is one from the group of one, two and three.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1 including means for registering said plurality of meeting planners into said database and means for gathering planner contact data.

4. A system as claimed in claim 3 including means for verifying said planner contact data.

5. A system as claimed in claim 1 including means for sorting and ordering said blinded specific data based upon predetermined criteria which includes data characteristic of at least one from the group of room price data, location data, amenity data, total revenue, composite rating and date availability data.

6. A computerized bidding and information exchange method accessible on a telecommunications network for matching hospitality facility data, representing vendors furnishing hotel facilities, meeting room facilities or other hospitality facilities, with meeting requirement data, representing respective necessities of a plurality of meeting planners for a corresponding plurality of meetings or events, the bidding, matching and information exchange method comprising the steps of:

as a computerized method;

gathering and storing by a server over said telecommunications network said hospitality facility data for said plurality of vendors and said meeting requirement data for said plurality of meeting planners in a database on a server accessible via said telecommunications network, said hospitality facility data at least including vendor contact data, room quantity data, and amenity data, said meeting requirement data including facilities requirements and price data and storing meeting planner contact data associated with said meeting requirement data;

said server obtaining a plurality of meeting planner offers from a corresponding plurality of meeting planners via said telecommunications network, each planner offer having a respective meeting requirement;

posting and making available blinded facilities requirement data and gathering responsive hospitality bid data by said server over said telecommunications network from a plurality of interested vendors relative to said posted blinded requirement data;

obtaining a plurality of hospitality facility offers from a corresponding plurality of hospitality vendors by said server via said telecommunications network, each facility offer having respective hospitality facility offer data including at least one facility feature and a facility offer price;

posting and making available blinded facility offer data and gathering responsive meeting planner bid data from a plurality of interested meeting planners relative to said posted blinded facility offer data by said server over said telecommunications network;

permitting selection, by said server over said telecommunications network, a predetermined number of bids by each respective offering party;

exchanging, by said server over said telecommunications network, respective contact data and bid data between each said offeror and the predetermined number of selected bidders; and

,

in the event said offeror cannot fulfill the respective offer, repeating said permitting by said server selection step and exchanging by said server step while excluding, by said server, at least one of said predetermined number of bids.

7. A method as claimed in claim 6 wherein said predetermined number of bids selected by each said offeror is one from the group of one, two and three.

8. A method as claimed in claim 6 including the step of verifying said vendor data and said planner data prior to the steps of gathering offers therefrom.

9. A method as claimed in claim 6 wherein the method includes, prior to said step of permitting selection, sorting and ordering bid data, via said server, for each respective offer and presenting ordered blinded hospitality facility bid data to said corresponding meeting planner offeror and presenting ordered blinded meeting requirement bid data to said corresponding vendor offeror, said sort and order step based upon predetermined criteria which includes a data characteristic of at least one from the group of room price data, location data, amenity data, total revenue data, composite rating data and date availability data.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein said telecommunications network is an Internet and said posting and making available occurs on said Internet.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10 including the step of matching said planner offers with said hospitality facility data via said server and broadcasting planner offer messages to hospitality vendors with matching hospitality facility data by operations at said server.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11 including the step of obtaining a prospective meeting planner offer, matching said prospective planner offer with said hospitality facility data via said server and broadcasting blinded prospective planner offer messages to matching hospitality vendors by operations at said server thereby spurring hospitality facility offers for said prospective planner offer.

13. A method as claimed in claim 6 including the step of presenting to hospitality facility vendors and meeting planners who are both offering parties and bidding parties all posted offers and bids unique to those parties.

14. A method as claimed in claim 6 wherein the steps of posting and making available occurs via said server over said telecommunications network.

15. A method as claimed in claim 14 wherein said telecommunications network is an Internet and said posting and making available occurs on said Internet.

16. A method as claimed in claim 6 including the step of matching said planner offers with said hospitality facility data and broadcasting planner offer messages via operations at said server to hospitality vendors with matching hospitality facility data.

17. A method as claimed in claim 6 including the step of obtaining a prospective meeting planner offer, matching said prospective planner offer with said hospitality facility data via said server and broadcasting blinded prospective planner offer messages to matching hospitality vendors by operations at said server thereby spurring hospitality facility offers for said prospective planner offer.

18. A computerized bidding and information exchange method accessible on a telecommunications network for matching at a server hospitality facility data, representing vendors furnishing hotel facilities, meeting room facilities or other hospitality facilities, with meeting requirement data, representing respective necessities of a plurality of meeting planners for a corresponding plurality of meetings or events, the bidding, matching and information exchange method comprising the steps of:

as a computerized method;

gathering by said server via said telecommunications network and storing by said server said hospitality facility data for said plurality of vendors and said meeting requirement data for said plurality of meeting planners in a database on said server accessible via said telecommunications network, said hospitality facility data at least including vendor contact data, room quantity data, and amenity data, said meeting requirement data including facilities requirements and price data and storing meeting planner contact data associated with said meeting requirement data;

obtaining a plurality of meeting planner offers by said server via said telecommunications network from a corresponding plurality of meeting planners, each planner offer having a respective meeting requirement;

posting and making available by said server over said telecommunications network facilities requirement data and gathering responsive hospitality bid data from a plurality of interested vendors relative to said posted requirement offer data;

obtaining a plurality of hospitality facility offers by said server via said telecommunications network from a corresponding plurality of hospitality vendors, each facility offer having respective hospitality facility offer data including at least one facility feature and a facility offer price;

posting and making available facility offer data by said server over said telecommunications network and gathering responsive meeting planner bid data by said server via said telecommunications network from a plurality of interested meeting planners relative to said posted facility offer data;

permitting selection by said server of a predetermined number of bids by each respective offering party;

exchanging respective contact data and bid data by said server via said telecommunications network between each said offeror and the predetermined number of selected bidders; and

,

in the event said offeror cannot fulfill the respective offer, repeating said permitting selection step by said server, and exchanging step by said server while excluding at least one of said predetermined number of bids by said server.

19. A method as claimed in claim 18 wherein the method includes, prior to said step of permitting selection, sorting and ordering bid data for each respective offer via said server and presenting ordered hospitality facility bid data to said corresponding meeting planner offeror and presenting ordered meeting requirement bid data to said corresponding vendor offeror by operations at said server, said sort and order step based upon predetermined criteria which includes a data characteristic of at least one from the group of room price data, location data, amenity data, total revenue data, composite rating data and date availability data.

20. A method as claimed in claim 18 including the step of presenting, via said server, to hospitality facility vendors and meeting planners who are both offering parties and bidding parties all posted offers and bids unique to those parties.

21. A method as claimed in claim 18 wherein the steps of posting and making available occurs said telecommunications network via said server.

22. A method as claimed in claim 21 wherein said telecommunications network is an Internet and said posting and making available occurs on said Internet.

23. A method as claimed in claim 18 including the step of matching, via said server, said planner offers with said hospitality facility data and broadcasting planner offer messages to hospitality vendors with matching hospitality facility data.

24. A method as claimed in claim 18 including the step of obtaining a prospective meeting planner offer, matching, via said server, said prospective planner offer with said hospitality facility data and broadcasting, via said server, prospective planner offer messages to matching hospitality vendors thereby spurring hospitality facility offers for said prospective planner offer.