Cvent has expanded its partnership with Amadeus beyond integrating
its MeetingBroker product to now allow customers to instantly book small
meetings through the Cvent platform without the need for a request for proposal,
the company announced. The direct integration, through Cvent Instant Book,
allows hotels that use Amadeus Sales & Event Management, a sales and
catering system, to show available function space to Cvent planners in
real-time, according to the company. Guest room bookings are not yet available
through the tool.
"Everything with Instant Book is based on live
inventory, live rates, live availability," said Cvent VP of product
management Jim Abramson. "Planners have an easy, consumer-like experience.
They can go in, search and find what they're looking for, and from the hotel
perspective, they load the live inventory."
The tool lets clients define what is considered a small
meeting by allowing them to set their own parameters, such as meetings with 50
or fewer attendees, or events with a budget below, say, $10,000, but they are
not required to do so. The size of a meeting also may be limited by the type of
inventory made available by the hotels for instant booking.
Cvent Instant Book is currently in "early adopter"
pilot mode, as a discrete solution with more than 20 large and mid-market
organizations that plan a lot of small meetings testing it, Abramson said,
adding that it's ideally suited for "a lot of different types of planners,
including unmanaged or non-professional planners," even though
professional planners can use it, too.
The company intends to extend Instant Book to all buyers and
integrate it with the entire Cvent Supplier Network. Timing on that development
was not on a hard deadline. Abramson indicated it would be sometime next year.
In the meantime, Cvent will continue to build out the
product to include guest room booking, Abramson said. "We will have a
direct integration again, in this case with a company called DerbySoft,"
he said. "It is integrated to the central reservation system for the hotel
chains. [Customers] will be able to instantly go and create a room block."
Cvent anticipates adding the guest room booking capability
during the first half of 2022, Abramson said.