Over the past several years, Cvent has become the dominant electronic sourcing platform for meeting planners and organizations. The Cvent software allows companies to manage budgets, attendee lists, content, analysis, event expenditures and much more. The hotel sourcing function is just one of several services provided by the Cvent Supplier Network, but its ability to allow them to quickly and efficiently find event venues is one of the most important features that makes it so popular among meeting planners.
Preferred entered into a marketing partnership with Cvent in 2016. The intent of this relationship is to broaden the awareness of the Preferred brand, and increase the visibility of the many outstanding hotels and resorts that are part of Preferred.
At that time, Preferred became a “brand” on Cvent and meeting planners can utilize the Preferred “chain filter” to find our member hotels anywhere in the world. Preferred is the only collection of independent hotels on Cvent that has a chain filter. Preferred’s relationship and presence on Cvent is comparable to larger chains such as Hilton, Hyatt, Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, etc.
When meeting planners use the Preferred chain filter, this takes them directly to the individual hotel profiles. Meeting planners have the choice of whether or not to include the Preferred sales team on the RFP request through including them as a cc. They must make a conscious effort to include the national sales office team – it is not automatic. Preferred does not see all leads for Preferred member hotels which go through Cvent – only those leads where the client has specifically requested Preferred’s involvement.
Some larger companies who source hundreds or thousands of meetings per year have entered into preferential sourcing partnerships with Preferred as a ‘preferred supplier’. Preferred invests in these partnerships so the Preferred member hotels are included in the RFP requests put out by these companies for their clients. Without the partnership, these leads would only go to other hotel companies. Many of these partner companies use Cvent, and have created specific preferential sourcing to their preferred partners. For this reason, if a hotel is no longer included in the Preferred “chain filter”, it is impossible for the partner to recognize them as a Preferred Hotels & Resorts member and this hotel will no longer receive leads from these partners. At the time Cvent advises Preferred of a hotel’s request to remove their hotel from the chain filter, they would also be removed from the Preferred partner designation that these partners all utilize.
Current partners that utilize Cvent on an enterprise basis and use the Preferred chain filter include:
AMEX Meeting and Events – Globally
Bank of America
BCD – Meetings & Events - Global agreement
CWT- Meetings & Events - North America & Asia Pacific
Conference Direct – North America and Switzerland
Enterprise Events Group- North America
