Articles tagged “meetings”

The third party commission cuts by a growing number of hotel companies are emerging as planners’ biggest challenge in 2018. That’s followed by the current sellers’ market but, somehow, the cuts feel personal.

Can Marriott hold onto hotel owners and SPG elites? That was the underlying question on many analysts' minds during Marriott's second quarter earnings call. After all, the bigger you are, the harder you have to fall, right? But the world's largest hotel company, not surprisingly, doesn't see things that way.

Where Cvent leads, the rest of the event technology sector follows. That said, no one has yet to win out when it comes to emerging technologies like augmented reality and better solutions for sourcing small events.

Organizations planning small events are finally embracing technology to solve their most annoying problems. It's been a slow process, and better mobile and sourcing tools have made a big impact.

Avoiding digital tools to help manage simple meetings is a big missed opportunity. The good news is that more meeting planners and travel managers plan to experiment with new technology over the next year.

Eventbrite's rise has happened in tandem with that of the experience economy at large. Both the consumer and enterprise event technology sectors have thrived in recent years, with mobile tools redefining how people research and buy tickets to events.

Aventri may sound kind of like an Italian resort town, but it does stand out among other event technology brands. It's hard to brand a platform that offers a suite of services in a sector defined by individual product offerings. We'll see how this works out, and what companies Aventri acquires in coming years.

It's one thing to make your event as accessible as possible, but the rest of the travel industry needs to do more to adequately present suitable options for every traveler. In a welcome development, online booking is finally placing a new focus on accessibility.

Making money is important for most events, but it isn't everything. Happy attendees and successful business outcomes can help move the needle for companies, even if an event itself isn't a huge moneymaker.

Proving return on investment in the meetings and events space is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a difficult challenge, providing metrics for a host of areas from net revenue to attendee satisfaction. Yet planners are under growing pressure to meet the challenge.