Global Experience Specialists (GES), a full-service provider of live events, acquired two leading providers of event housing services, onPeak with headquarters in Chicago, and Travel Planners headquartered in New York City. The combined business will serve clients under the name onPeak, a GES Global Company (onPeak | GES).
With 60 years of combined experience, the new onPeak | GES provides premium housing services to approximately 60 percent of the top 250 U.S. events. As the exclusive distributor of housing services for an event, onPeak | GES leverages its scale and industry-leading technology to offer convenient and affordable hotel accommodations to event attendees and exhibitors. onPeak | GES manages the complexities of hotel booking administration before, during and after the event, including securing room blocks with local hotels, marketing those reserved blocks to event attendees and exhibitors, managing attendee and exhibitor reservations and addressing any housing concerns during the event.
Steve Moster, president of GES, set a vision for the company to be the preferred global full-service provider for live events. The vision is driven by GES’ clients desire to create the best event experience possible for their exhibitors and attendees. Adding event housing services enables GES to be the only company that can provide a complete event experience.
“Our clients told us that they want GES to create unique, integrated experiences delivered by just one trusted partner for their most critical event needs,” said Moster. “We are honored to have earned our clients’ trust and are really excited to offer a complete event experience to all of our clients – from exhibition organizers to corporate marketers, event agencies and now hotel partners.”
Leading the new onPeak team as executive vice president of onPeak | GES is Michael Howe, formerly president of onPeak. Howe will report to Moster. Lisa Baez, formerly executive director of Travel Planners, will report to Howe as vice president of housing account services.
“Like GES, Travel Planners and onPeak were built on technical innovation and great service,” said Howe. “We’re thrilled to combine our expertise and advanced technology with the global resources of GES. This opens the doors to really exciting opportunities for our clients and employees.”
With onPeak and Travel Planners, GES has recently completed three acquisitions. Blitz Communications, a leader in audio-visual services for the live events industry in the U.K. and continental Europe was acquired Sept. 12.
