Cvent research also reveals most popular amenities and meeting promotions that planners and their attendees are seeking

McLean, Va. – Cvent (NYSE : CVT), a leading cloud-based enterprise event management platform, today unveiled the Promotions Hub, a new section of the Cvent Supplier Network (CSN) that centralizes thousands of promotions from hotels and special event venues, making it easier for event and meeting planners to find and take advantage of special offers. Accompanying the Promotions Hub is the release of a survey that lists the most valuable hotel amenities and promotions as ranked by almost 800 planners in the U.S.

Promotions Hub Brings Sophisticated Deal-Shopping to Planners

Cvent’s new Promotions Hub gives planners an efficient tool to search for specific offers among the 200,000 venues in CSN. Planners can use it to:

• Easily find new promotions
• Locate deals by market, popularity, event dates and other criteria tailored to their organization
• View the most frequently-claimed promotions
• Identify offers by date or that are expiring soon

The Promotions Hub will also give hotels and special event venues a targeted way to reach the more than 30,000 planners that are active in CSN to win business, drive awareness and fill rooms any time of the week or year. Venues benefit from access to demographic, organizational, and historical data available through CSN that makes it easier to create promotions that will generate business.

"Consumers these days are used to searching online for special deals and last-minute discounts, so it made perfect sense to create a similar place for the meetings and events industry," said Bharet Malhotra, senior vice president of sales for the Cvent Supplier Network. "The Promotions Hub makes finding special offers more efficient and laser-focused. We’ve made it easier for planners looking for deals—and venues with deals to offer—to find each other."

The Most Negotiated Amenities: Room Discounts, Wi-Fi

In a research study into the meetings promotions market to develop the Promotions Hub, Cvent identified the top items that influence planners’ decision-making when booking meetings. The survey also revealed the most important amenities that attract attendees. Following are the Top 10 most valuable amenities that planners negotiate when booking a venue, along with their rankings of what amenities are most valuable to attendees:

Top Amenities for Planners:

1. Discounted sleeping rooms
2. Discounted meeting space
3. Meeting room Wi-Fi
4. Discounted menu prices
5. In-room Wi-Fi
6. Allowable attrition
7. Sleeping room upgrades
8. Discounted audiovisual
9. Discounted parking
10. Late checkout times

Top Amenities for Attendees:

1. Free Wi-Fi/Internet access
2. Roundtrip airport transportation
3. Free parking
4. Late checkout
5. Meal service
6. Early check-in
7. Fitness center access
8. Business center access
9. Welcome reception
10. Beverage service

"We spend a lot of time researching and trying to understand what motivates planners to book group business at our property during low demand periods" said Chandra Allison, Vice President of sales at the Venetian and Palazzo Hotels. "And even when we think we’ve come up with just the right offer, there hasn’t been an ideal way for us to target the planners we’re most interested in reaching. With the Promotions Hub and insight from Cvent’s survey results, it will be easier for us to match the right special offers with the right planners."

Cvent’s research also found that planners are often looking for promotions early in the process of identifying venues and destinations, making the creation of a promotion shopping capability an obvious addition to the company’s online meetings booking marketplace. The survey was conducted by reaching out to planners that were active in CSN and third party lists from Oct. 7 through Oct. 20, 2013.