The Irish chapter of the HSMAI is one of HSMAI's fastest growing chapters with over 100 members whose prime objectives are to try to get all facets of the tourism industry, both north and south of the border, involved in HSMAI, to be part of the organisation that is dedicated to servicing the needs of hospitality, travel and tourism sales & marketing professionals.

During the Failte Ireland Workshops which were held in Killarney in May of 2003, the HSMAI decided to host a networking evening to promote membership of the HSMAI to the 1,500 attendees at the workshops. The Networking Event was sponsored by Expedia.com and the Gleneagle Hotel, Killarney. Places were limited, so it was critical for the organisers to be able to set up a system where the first to register would get the places.

The HSMAI turned to Eventznet for a cost-effective solution to their problem. Alex Gibson, the President of the Irish Chapter of the HSMAI and a senior lecturer in Tourism and Marketing in the Dublin Institute of Technology, had used Eventznet in December 2002 and so was aware that the Eventznet system was perfect for his purposes.

"We needed to be able to invite all 1,500 people to the event," says Alex, "quickly and easily. E-mail marketing was the obvious solution for us. However, we also needed to be able to track the responses to the e-mail invitation, so that the first guests to confirm would receive the places."

"We didn't have the time or resources to set up a dedicated telephone line for RSVP's," continues Alex, "and trying to manage individual e-mail responses would have been a nightmare. We also needed to be able to quickly communicate to our guests when the event had reached capacity, and implement a waiting list."

The 1,500 names were imported into the HSMAI Eventznet account, the event microsite was created, and the e-mails were sent to all on the list with a click of a button. Within minutes, the first responses were recorded in the HSMAI's Eventznet account. By mid-day on the day after the invitations were sent, the event was over-subscribed, and Alex was able to update the microsite and invitation pages to ensure that potential guests knew that the event was full.

"Eventznet really was the only way for us to do all this." concludes Alex Gibson, "We just didn't have the budget or the time to hire a programmer and web-master to build us a customised system. Eventznet came with all the functionality we needed at a reasonable cost."