With its online platform for venues, search engine, and Location Award, fiylo Deutschland provides its customers with plenty of requests by event planners. In the future, fiylo will not only successfully present national venues, the newly-founded fiylo international GmbH, with Bernd Fritzges and Frank Lienert as equal managing directors, will transport the business model around the world.
In the German market, fiylo registers a steadily-growing number of providers. “fiylo is the strongest event location portal with 1,600 online presentations,” reports Bernd Fritzges. Use the link at the end of this article to coordinate a meeting with Bernd at ITB 2017. In contrast to conventional MICE portals, fiylo renounces all commissions from venue operators when a booking is made. “Classic MICE booking portals usually calculate their percentage share based on the sales volume, regardless of the profit generated by the venue with the event,” explains Bernd Fritzges. At fiylo, an annual subscription fee is to be paid by the location operators. They have established a record to be proud of. According to Bernd Fritzges, in 2016 alone, 7,864 events were realized with a turnover of more than 100 million euros. Therefore, the company that has announced the “man of the first hour” Nils Schröder as national director at the beginning of the year, reached at least one of the top 3 places in Germany.
Olympiastadion Berlin on winning track
One of their long-term partners is the Berlin Olympiastadion – the head of event management and media spokesman, Christoph Meyer, puts the advantages of fiylo in a nutshell: “Visually perfect presentation, direct contact with the customer, at least 20 high-quality inquiries per year, and no annoying commission payments,” are the criteria which are decisive for Christoph Meyer. “fiylo offers now a big step towards Europe for our business events.” Christoph Meyer sees the internationalization as a consistent development of a perfectly-elaborated product. “The fact that our offers and concepts are well received has already been awarded with the Location Award 2014, and we are very proud of that.”
In Germany, fiylo is well-known for a broad distribution network, and every venue that wants to be presented on the platform needs to be a partner. “At fiylo international, we cooperate directly with convention bureaus or alternatively with destination management companies – in short, DMCs,” reports Bernd Fritzges. The national or regional umbrella organizations still have data sovereignty over the event locations which are listed at fiylo international. fiylo international is already cooperating with its first partners – the Convention Bureaus of Switzerland and Upper Austria. “We are in discussion with further interlocutors,” according to Bernd Fritzges.
“As with fiylo Deutschland, there will be an exact reporting for every customer at fiylo international,” announces Bernd Fritzges. The monitoring with Google Analytics is a model for it. As a further option, a newsletter will be available. In Germany, it is regularly sent to 18,000 event planners. All venues, which are listed on fiylo Deutschland, can benefit from a further advantage from spring onwards. Based on the cooperation with Expedia, fiylo provides the MeetingMarket technology as a booking tool. This software is designed to help the event locations to automate sales processes for events and thereby make them more efficient. According to Bernd Fritzges, price calculations and availability queries in real-time are the basis.
Premiere at the Best of Events international
Bernd Fritzges considers his start as a managing director at fiylo international as a vote of confidence by Frank Lienert. In the past years, he has successfully implemented the brand locationportale.de and then in the course of further development, fiylo Deutschland. The CV of Bernd Fritzges also shows strong commitment. He took over the management of the gastronomic family business as a managing partner at the age of 18 in 1995. This and another venue near the capitol city were modified by the native Berliner into a site to experience gastronomy and public events.
After joining the MICE industry from 2006 onwards for an agency in Hamburg, Bernd Fritzges took over the management of the conference service of the largest German conference specialist two years later. In 2014, he was appointed to the management board. Now the management position at fiylo international follows. In addition, Bernd Fritzges is the Chairman of the Board of VERANSTALTUNGSPLANER.DE, the largest national association for corporate event planners, “Vereinigung Deutscher Veranstaltungsorganisatoren e.V.” “The MICE world is my home,” emphasizes Bernd Fritzges, who wants to start globally with fiylo international.
Bernd Fritzges and Frank Lienert have already found a suitable podium for the first public appearance of the newly-established company. At the Best of Events, the trade fair for adventure marketing in Dortmund’s Westfalenhallen, fiylo presented itself at a joint stand in Hall 5 B22 together with Expedia MeetingMarket. The partners also had their own business lounge for networking at the BoE Night for the first time. ITB and IMEX are further fairs where fiylo international wants to present itself.
If you would like to meet Bernd Fritzges to discuss the advantages of fiylo international at ITB, please use this link to book a meeting with him by clicking here.
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