Case Study: Fairmont San Jose achieves major efficiency gains and surging bookings with Cvent

Transforming pandemic losses into lessons in efficiency and planner relationships

Fairmont Washington, D.C., Georgetown faced a sudden post‑2019 reversal when the pandemic coincided with a $3M renovation: staff shrank from eight to four while planner demand and expectations rose. The hotel needed faster, more transparent processes to showcase its upgraded spaces, maintain planner relationships, and operate efficiently with a much smaller sales team.

By bringing Cvent Passkey in‑house, adopting Smart Custom Proposals, Event Diagramming and BI tools, the team cut Passkey lead time by about 12 hours (to ~3 hours), trained all sales staff to create diagrams quickly, and centralized data for smarter bidding. Results included a 201% increase in RFPs year‑over‑year, web reservations via Passkey up more than 1000%, a 98% response rate in H1 2022, market share at 16% in 2022, and an average awarded RFP value of $18,000.

Fairmont San Jose

Chris Lannan

Director of Group Sales