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The Group Travel Leader Going on Faith Select Traveler

There’s A Meeting Planner App For That

Group Travel Family

The Group Travel Family began using Yapp earlier this year to make custom apps for each of its five (now six) annual conferences. Yapp is a Web platform anyone can use to create a free mobile app, and the Group Travel Family launched its first custom event app for the Select Traveler Conference in March, said president and CEO Joe Cappuzzello. The company also created mobile apps for its Going On Faith and African American Travel conferences, as well as for the Small Market Meetings Conference in September, he said.

Although the company is still learning how to best use custom mobile apps, and the apps aren’t “really sophisticated,” he said, they do cover the basics — and do it efficiently.

Each app typically includes a conference schedule, answers to frequently asked questions, a list of sponsors, a speaker gallery with biographies, links to the host destination, and options to post pictures, share videos and tweet from within the app.

“As sure as God makes green apples, the conference schedule won’t be accurate; a bus will change and/or a new sponsor will come in late,” he said. “Now, we can make that change last-minute, on the fly.”

Although still new to conference-goers, the custom conference apps seem to gain ground among attendees with each event. About 25 percent of delegates are using the apps, and “we were close to 50 percent at the Going On Faith Conference,” he said.

“Every conference seems to be a little bit more,” Cappuzzello said. “I’m sure when we do it the second time [for each conference], it’s going to be even more well received.”

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