Meeting Rooms
Davinci Launches New Meeting Rooms Reservation Platform
Published January 12th, 2009 by Jennifer LeClaire
Davinci Virtual has done it again. Davinci Virtual is already a leading player in the on-demand office solutions market. Now, it’s making moves to compete with Officescape and its expanded on-demand office space platform.
Specifically, Davinci Virtual has launched a new Web-based reservation platform that aims to make booking conference rooms and meeting spaces as quick and easy as purchasing office supplies from Quill.com.
You can find the new system at DavinciMeetingRooms.com. The Web site will give you
immediate access to meeting spaces within the Davinci Virtual stock that match your specific business needs, including size, location, and technical requirements.
“We think our clients and the business community will really benefit from the speed and efficiency of this service,” said Bill Grodnik, President and CEO of Davinci Virtual. “A process that used to be time-consuming and cumbersome can now be accomplished in a few minutes. Our customers will now find meetings easy to plan and affordable to host.”
Streamlining Meeting Room Selection
When you consider that Davinci Meeting rooms offers more than 2,000 meeting spaces in metropolitan areas around the world, you can see why the new Web-based reservation system is a must have. But when you consider the bells and whistles that you can add to the meeting room experience Davinci offers the need becomes even more apparent.
In addition to choosing the prime office building in the city of your choice, for example, you can also choose add-on services like LCD projectors, videoconferencing, catering, and business support services.
DavinciMeetingRooms.com promise to reduce the cost and effort of researching and negotiating meeting room options and responds to a growing, global workforce. I think Davinci accomplishes its goal with the new system.
A First-Hand Experience
I took it for a whirl this morning. It’s got a user-friendly interface that asks you the standard questions: city, state, zip, country, and date and hours required, as well as the radius in which you are willing to travel to get to the meeting room.
I typed in Hallandale Beach, offered a five-mile radius, and asked for meeting space today between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Short notice, I know. But we’re testing the metal here. Wouldn’t you know it? They offered me two solutions. The Hollywood Florida Business Center and the Hollywood Business Center. Prices started at $15 an hour for a day office and I was given all the details I could handle, as well as directions.
I like the straightforward pricing. An LCD projector cost me $46.75 an hour, but a dry erase board is free. A network connection cost me $13.50, but a wireless connection is free. Secretarial service cost me $46.75 an hour – wow – and a notary is $9.50. In short, I can get access to everything I would need to hold a meeting for two or up to 60. and it only took about three minutes to make the reservation.
More About Davinci Virtual
Davinci Virtual is a respected provider of turnkey virtual communications and virtual office solutions. Davinci’s virtual offices and services include local or toll-free telephone and fax numbers, digital voicemail, electronic fax, e-mail, online command center, unified messaging, voice and video conferencing, voicemail to e-mail, fax to e-mail, professional live receptionist services, virtual assistants, live call answering, screening and forwarding, find me, follow me, surveys, outbound calling, customer service, appointment scheduling, order taking, and more.
Davinci offers virtual office locations and virtual office services worldwide. With professional business addresses in over prime 600 locations, mail forwarding, lobby and directory listings, access to conference rooms and day offices, catering, administrative services, virtual assistants, business support centers, resident agent services, license hanging and more, Davinci Virtual aims to help businesses maintain a global presence on a local budget.
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About the Author
Melanie Jones January 13th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Davinci is a master at meeting space marketing. I applaud them on the new web-based reservation system. This is not the wave of the future for the serviced office industry — it’s the wave of now. It’s just that some haven’t caught on to automated booking of office space rentals and virtual office services yet. But they will. The whole world is going web 2.0. Why should office rentals be any different?
Rob Zeus January 13th, 2009 at 9:08 am
So many times in press releases, the CEO offers up a lame quote full of hyperbole. Davinci Virtual didn’t do that. Its CEO is telling the truth when he says, “A process that used to be time-consuming and cumbersome can now be accomplished in a few minutes. Our customers will now find meetings easy to plan and affordable to host.”
I can’t imagine trying to find an book a meeting room online without this type of system. You’d have to call various places, compare prices and amenities. What a nightmare. Finding meeting room space is easy thanks to the Web and thanks to vendors like Davinci Virtual that embrace it.
Marcus Hester January 13th, 2009 at 9:36 am
With 2,000 meeting spaces I would think you could find a Davinci Virtual office just about anywhere. I decided to give it a try, too.
I tried a search five miles within Ozark, Alabama and got nothing. Ozark is a very small town so I wasn’t surprised. I stretched the mile marker to 10 miles, 15 miles and then 25 miles. Still nothing. Now I am getting disappointed that I might not find a meeting room.
I stretched it out to 50 miles. Still nothing. Now I am worried. Surely, there’s a meeting room within 100 miles of Ozark, Alabama. There are big cities within 100 miles…but alas, nothing.
Either it’s a flaw in the search or there’s not much demand in Lower Alabama for meeting rooms. Or Davinci isn’t covering itself.
I did another quick search for meeting rooms within 100 miles of Montgomery, which is the capital, and found two in Birmingham.
Maggie Correta January 14th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Wow, Marcus really offered a good example there on the breadth of Davinci Virtual’s meeting room coverage. It also identified gaps in the office space market.
If you can’t get a meeting room in the capital of Alabama, that’s telling. Well, at least you can’t find a Davinci Virtual meeting room there. I wonder if it’s because there’s no demand or because Davinci hasn’t spread its wings that far yet.
Peter Chee January 15th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Being a directory of virtual office space wasn’t enough. Now, Davinci wants to be the directory of meeting rooms too. You’ll notice when doing a search that even Regus isn’t selling out to Davinci.
@maggie, in order to show up on Davinci’s site, a company that physically operates the meeting space needs to sign an affiliate or partner contract with Davinci. After they sign that they will be put onto the site. If you rent a meeting from the Davinci site then Davinci gets a share of the revenue.
@melanie, the whole world is going Web 2.0, but I’m guessing that most executive office space providers find it too difficult to do their own SEO that they look at Davinci as being an easy option.
Davinci will never dominate a local area on the Internet like how a local company can do it for themselves. Davinci might rank highly for certain generic keyword terms but once you add on a specific location “virtual office ” they won’t be able to compete.
I guess they don’t care since they are just trying to get small percentage of everyone else’s business. At the end of the day that ends up to be a lot of money.
I think this model of being “the directory” is broken. Davinci still thinks that they need to be a portal. In what way is Davinci being Web 2.0?
Melanie Jones January 15th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Peter just took the cover off Davinci’s model. The general office-renting public doesn’t see or know, or probably care, about any of that inside baseball. But it’s interesting nonethelesss and explains why they don’t have the coverage in certain areas for meeting room reservations.
So far as the Web 2.0 aspect. That’s a loose term. What I meant by that is a move away from static webpages to dynamic content. It’s interactive.
Thanks for calling a spade a spade, Peter. Like I said, it’s an interesting aspect of the industry most people who rent office space or meeting rooms don’t see clearly.
Mike Sullivan January 15th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
First, virtual assistants and virtual receptionists are Davinci’s bread and butter. Just about all executive suites will provide some form of virtual reception; few will provide virtual assistants who are trained salespeople, order takers, customer support, etc. Essentially, they can act as a call center; or spend hours per day doing tasks for a client. Davinci does this part of their business very well, and is clearly a leader.
In order to provide more services to their clients, they have been expanding their range of services. One of these services is address/mail receipt/conference room use. In order to accomodate, they partnered with executive suites all over the world. They charge $120 monthly for this service, most of which (80%+) goes to the executive suite, not to Davinci.
Their virtual assistant and virtual receptionist business would not have nearly the legs if they weren’t able to provide these comprehensive services. Perhaps it’s like Kayak offering flight information, but not hotel information. People who are looking for a virtual assistant often don’t want to go to another provider for other virtual services; they want a one stop shop.
Is it the ideal scenario? Maybe not. Is it web 2.0? I really don’t know. Does it provide a good service to businesses? It clearly does.
@Peter - maybe we should figure out a better model than Davinci to capitalize on filling this need. I’m all ears… my number is 859 492 1346… feel free to call anytime to discuss.
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