I recently came back from a short holiday in Kuala Lumpur and once again, I booked my service apartment through Agoda.com. After my holidays, I was prompted by Agoda to give a rating for my stay at the service suite, which in turn helps others to decide for themselves based on the reviews and ratings of users like myself.
So I wonder, how about the Agoda-alike for event venues? Where star ratings for events venues across the world could provide a boost to the event organizers when it comes to seeking out a suitable location.
Well in UK, Stephanie Ellrott, head of venues at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is campaigning to have such a system implemented to provide benefits for both delegates and coordinators.
She told Meet Pie that the ratings could be similar to those offered when booking hotels, with each one being given between zero and five stars to indicate quality and value for money for would-be bookers.
Ms Ellrott pointed out that at present, low-quality event venues (such as those that do not include facilities like Wi-Fi or air conditioning as standard) are free to charge event organizers what they like – and it can sometimes be as much as the fee for a venue of a much higher standard.
“As a buyer, you know what to expect from a four-star or a five-star hotel in terms of service. This would offer the same thing. Managing the expectations of the clients is very difficult when they don’t know what to expect,” the expert concluded.
Indeed, I agree with Stephanie that a rating system could also be very useful for event organizers after a location and fair price have been secured. It helps to reassure them that their investment in booking the venue would be well worth it, and if things turn out otherwise, they could in turn, alert others by giving a bad review and rate the event venue poorly.
However, it does raise the question of policing the ratings – for example, some people troll the internet purely to write bad reviews for hotels, so it would be necessary to prevent the same thing happening here and dragging down the rating of a perfectly good event venue.
Providing the system was implemented in a fair and carefully monitored manner though, ratings for venues could assist organizers in finding suitable locations more quickly, and help remove a major question mark when searching and booking an event venue.
So anyone game to build a platform to help Event Organisers?
