Cvent Wraps Successful CONNECT Conference in Vegas

Cvent just wrapped up its annual Cvent CONNECT conference in Las Vegas, and the meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider announced a few new and expanded programs for meeting planners. Here’s what travel buyers may expect to see in the future. A few highlights:

Trade Shows Could Get Easier
Marketers and trade show managers will get greater access to Cvent programs. In the last year, Cvent has debuted two new products, which will now be more generally available.

Universal Appointments helps managers make sure they get the best out of their appointments in terms of quantity and quality. Universal LeadCapture helps them follow up on the best leads from those meetings.

In the third and fourth quarter of this year, Cvent will roll out registration and Universal Check-in. They will let marketers promote and register customers for dinners, receptions and other events beyond the show. They can also allow marketers to tap into Cvent OnArrival customers with third party badges to broaden their reach.

Kapow will let marketers go beyond the trade show floor to book experiences for their VIP clients.

“Organizations may spend up to 50 percent of their marketing budgets on trade shows and in-person events,” said Patrick Smith, chief marketing officer at Cvent. “With this level of spend, it’s crucial that trade show managers and marketers are able to maximize the value that these events deliver to their organizations.”

Pick Your Seat
It will now be easier to figure out floor plans for meetings through the Cvent Supplier Network. Cvent announced that the network will showcase interactive floor plans for thousands of venues.

Hotels will be able to show off their floor plan offerings through the network. Cvent will use Social Tables, which it acquired last year, to provide the functionality. Cvent can also now offer customizable 3D renderings of event spaces.

AccorHotels is one hotel company trying it out. The company will standardize the 3D diagramming across all its North America properties.

“We’re able to visually showcase exactly how we can accommodate their needs and bring their event experiences to life,” said Marc Cassier, vice president of conference services and catering sales at Accor North and Central America.

Get More Competitive 
Cvent has introduced Proposal Assistant, which will be available in August to hotels and other venues using the company’s Lead Scoring program.

It will eliminate much of the manual work used to respond to requests for proposals.

Pete Floros, senior vice president of product for Cvent Hospitality Cloud, said hotels are still spending too much time filling out dates, rates and meeting space information when responding to RFP’s from companies looking to use their spaces.

“In many cases, the hotels that are the quickest to respond are the ones that close the deal,” Floros said. “Proposal Assistant is going to allow hotels to compete for that first response and grow their group business.”

Proposal Assistant uses “Smart Automation” from the hotel or venue’s most current data to populate the dates, rates and meeting space information for planners to see what is available.

It can also examine what competitors are offering, finding out what the average rate they are proposing. Cvent’s product can then adjust the proposed rate and see how it plays out in real time.

A New Community is Formed
Cvent users will now be able to communicate with each other more easily. Cvent Community, a new online space for professionals participating in meetings and events, is making its debut. The new feature will allow for users to access educational resources and communicate with each other in open forum discussions. But users will be able to customize Cvent Community to meet their needs.

Users will be able to search for popular help topics and get training on-demand. Cvent can communicate new products and improvements to them. Users will be able to submit and vote for ideas to improve Cvent products. And they will get access to the Cvent support team.

“While nothing beats the power of meeting face-to-face, we’re proud to offer our customers the unique opportunity to enjoy a similar ‘live’ experience in an online forum,” said Stacey Fontenot, vice president of marketing at Cvent.

Cvent already has more than 1,300 employees worldwide dedicated to customer support.