Cvent Hospitality

The climate of booking hotel group business has changed dramatically over the past five years, catapulted by the economic downturn but  lately affected by a more chic and discerning evolving demographic. The hospitality industry is moving beyond reactive responses to a depressed environment and is now focusing on a proactive approach to a hopeful future. Lifestyle advertising is now marketing hotels and touting fresh, innovative and experiential offerings for the  young and hip group business...

Sitting in a large ballroom with theater style seating watching a PowerPoint presentation with the lights dimmed, isn't the way we learn any longer. Due to the integration of smartphones and tablets, attendees are demanding more from the meeting environment than ever before.

Andrea Sullivan, President of BrainStrength Systems said, "Young people today have different brain wiring than older people who used different technologies that were dominate in earlier decades. For instance, older...

Social networking has increased in popularity as a tool for hotel marketing and as a connection from the traveling masses to resorts. Reaching travelers, though, goes beyond opening a Facebook account and assigning an employee to answer questions and announce rate specials. What do the visitors to your social networking sites look for? According to Social Concierges: A Solution to the Hotel Marketing Problem—an article by ttnooz guest editor, Pedro Colaco, President and CEO of GuestCentric—the...

Hotel e-commerce and website managers strive to convert website visits into long durations on the hotel website, increased email sign-ups, awareness of new marketing campaigns and eventually bookings. If hotels were to compare the number of planners who register for a hotel's monthly email to the average number of daily visitors, most likely, there’s a strong difference. How do you make those visits into successful marketing "conversions" for the hotel? While there are a number of reasons why...

Could the situation with General Services Administration (GSA) really hurt the entire hospitality industry? I certainly hope not, but a lot of posturing is happening in Congress, as well as, at the US Travel Association, ASE, MPI and PCMA. Before you start wringing your hands and worrying about what the government initiatives are going to be on travel, let's take a look at the facts, the problems, the fallout, and some potential solutions from a hospitality marketing prospective.  

Here are the...

The Olympics bring back many great memories of excitement and fun for me. I remember in the years of my youth, my parents used to have to pry me away from the TV to do chores or go to bed on those hot summer afternoons and late nights. I had to see who won the gymnastics competition or the 100-yard dash. And probably like most individuals I know, attending the Olympics "up close and personal" is on their bucket list. I know it is on mine. Unfortunately, I am not able to go to London this year...

I would imagine the hospitality industry is very familiar with the phrase, Money can't buy happiness. What's better than taking some time off to relax and "get happy"? Well, in a recent TED Talk, Michael Norton calls the bluff on this proverb saying if you believe this, you're spending wrong. So how can you buy the happiness of hotel guests, meeting planners and employees?

Be Prosocial.

All being prosocial means is that instead of trying to buy happiness by spending the money on yourself, you...

In the words of the beloved and infamous Kermit the Frog, "It's not easy being green." The verdict is still out on whether making the often expensive and almost always challenging efforts to become a green hotel is worth it and whether being eco-certified and using that initiative in hotel group business marketing will actually increase group hotel bookings.

In the article "Hotelier Weighs Green as a Value Proposition" Hans Pfister, president and co-owner of Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality S.A.,...

The region surrounding London is gearing up for a lucrative today and the building of a better tomorrow in the local hotel industry. With so much attention from the Olympics there are unique issues challenging the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Olympic room block obligations, the onslaught of advance room blocks, pleasing the masses, pricing rooms fairly and the inevitable afterglow. London is bridging the...

A familiarization tour isn’t just for the press and media anymore; it can be great opportunity for a destination to market themselves and gain exposure with meeting planners. With a typical media fam tour, it can be hard to track the correlation between a published article and landing a large convention; however, local tourism groups, convention and visitors bureau, and tourism boards can invite planners to visit, stay for free and ultimately, familiarize themselves with all the destination has...

Last week, Cvent announced the top 100 hotels for meetings in the United States, according to data gathered from the Cvent Supplier Network. The list was compiled from a pool of 80,000 hotels in the U.S. on our free marketplace, so it’s safe to say that the competition was stiff! Being some of the “best of the best” means they must have some valuable insights…so we figured we’d tap a few VPs at these organizations to learn what they believe gives their  property an edge. Below you’ll find the...

Names are fascinating because there is a story behind every one, intricately woven and amazing. Recently I discovered that in 1972 a motel that touted reasonable rates to weary travelers opened its doors to the name Super 8. Why? The rate for one night was $8.88! Finding this little nugget prompted me to sleuth further into the name game to see what history mystery I could uncover behind other "home away from home" monikers and how names are changing right along with today's ever changing...

Destination Travel Marketing Organizations: Think quick! What makes your destination so unique and special? Why would groups want to come to your city or region? If you said or thought word like "our downtown area", "our museums" or "our beaches", you would be like the 50,000 other CVBs marketing a destination. Now think again. "What makes our city or region so unique that people would be willing to travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles, to reach it? What makes our area worth the trip?"

The...

When most sales managers think about their convention and visitors bureau’s social media channels, they may not initially recognize the CVB as a client resource. In fact, destination social media marketing professionals have a potential to be instrumental in increasing group bookings with added services such as customized packages.

These customized packages consist of services that a planner might already be seeking. As a bonus, the CVB can call upon these services in-house and offer interactive...

In the past year, hoteliers have seen federal agencies cancel extensive training programs from the books for 2011 and 2012; many thanks to Obama’s recent spending cut that targeted federal agencies’ travel, conferences and meetings budgets. Hoteliers who once relied heavily on government meetings business and targeted them with ads will have to rethink their marketing message to this audience.

In a most recent meetings scandal, expenses from a lavish Government Services Administration (GSA)...

When planning a convention, most meeting planners spend a fair amount of time determining whether or not they are going to hold their meeting in a first- or second-tier city, the square footage of the convention center, how many breakout rooms it has, and blah-blah-blah.

But in honor of Earth Day and the fact that it is spring time, what about trying to advertise convention centers as having well-designed green spaces, parks, and pedestrian-friendly walkways and neighborhoods? "Psychologists have...

According to many hotel owners and general mangers, the first 15 minutes a guest is on property "makes or breaks" their opinion of your venue. Mickael C. Damelincourt, General Manager of Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto said, "If you lose them at the beginning, it is very hard to recover. In their mind, they've decided it is a bad hotel."

The reason hotel's need to focus on the guest experience, right from the get go, is due to social media. In the past, guests used to wait until they...

In February of this year, MeetingsNet magazine surveyed 800 meeting planners on their use of social media for event promotion, meeting trends, and career insights. They focused on the following tools: Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The information below will highlight some of the ways planners use these sites. Before I get into the details, here is an overall demographic look at social media from an age, sex, and years in the business perspective.

When asked, "Which Social Media...

Hotels have long vied for the attention of the weary by promising a good night’s sleep. With more and more hotels adopting mascots, counting sheep (or dogs or cats) will be easier for the somnolent traveler. Industry experts know that developing trust and relationships is key when booking group business. What better way than with a cute, cuddly character that emulates brand image and becomes a member of your hotel marketing team?  

Mascots are Memorable and Magical!

Mascots are engaging. They...

Even the best planner can use a little help doing the research, analyzing the best rates and managing the details of large, enterprise events. That's where the third party independent planning company comes in. Third party planners have evolved from only site selection to a range of services. Whether the planner selects an event company that is her right arm from beginning to end or a company that manages only the rooms and rates research, the supplier of meeting space or guest rooms would earn...