Cvent Announces Top 50 Meeting Destinations in the United States

MCLEAN, Va., Aug. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Cvent, the leader in cloud-based event management solutions, today announced the top 50 cities for meetings and events in the United States, according to meeting and event booking activity in the Cvent Supplier Network. Cvent operates the number one marketplace for group meetings business in the world, expecting to source $7 billion of meetings business in 2012.

The top 10 cities are:

1. Orlando, FL
2. Washington, DC
3. Las Vegas, NV
4. Miami, FL
5. Chicago, IL
6. San Diego, CA
7. Phoenix, AZ
8. Atlanta, GA
9. Dallas, TX
10. New Orleans, LA

To see the full list of the top 50 cities, please visit http://www.cvent.com/en/sem/top-50-meeting-destinations-us-2012.shtml.  

"Meetings and conventions are important revenue generators for cities, supporting not only the meeting venues and hotels, but also local restaurants, entertainment and numerous other businesses within the city," said Bharet Malhotra, Vice President of Sales for the Cvent Supplier Network. "Cvent's role in the meetings ecosystem is to connect venues and planners to facilitate efficient and informed meeting booking. As the single largest marketplace for meetings activity, we have an excellent feel for which cities and properties are popular and growing, and the data to back it up."

"We are honored and excited to be rated as the top U.S. destination by Cvent. Corporate meetings are a crucial business segment for Orlando, and our ranking No. 1 validates the effort we have put into working with these groups," said Tammi Runzler, senior vice president of convention sales and services at Visit Orlando. "More importantly, Orlando remains committed to making the destination a compelling choice for corporate meetings."

More than 2,000 Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) are profiled on the Cvent Supplier Network. Cvent acknowledges that CVBs are trained to support planners when booking meetings or events.  As destination experts, CVBs can provide complimentary insider tips, venue recommendations, local area information and contract negotiation assistance. Planners who are interested in working with Cvent's CVB partners have the opportunity to include CVBs at multiple points during the site selection and sourcing process.

Cvent evaluated 1,000 cities and 200 major metropolitan areas (MMAs) in the U.S. on the Cvent Supplier Network to create the list. Activity was tracked between July 2011 and June 2012, and the ranking was then determined by a set of qualifying criteria, some of which included:

• The number of total room nights booked through the Cvent Supplier Network;
• The number of unique electronic request-for-proposals (RFPs) sent through the marketplace to venues within the city;
• The total value of the RFPs submitted;
• The actual awarded value for meetings booked.

In addition to ranking top cities, Cvent also ranked the top MMAs to represent select markets where notable meetings activity takes place near, but outside the limits of the city core. To see the list of the top 50 MMAs, please visit http://www.cvent.com/en/sem/top-50-meeting-markets-us-2012.shtml.

The Cvent Supplier Network creates value for planners and suppliers. It includes more than 200,000 hotels and special event venues worldwide, providing one-stop shopping for meetings buyers. Additionally, the Company extends suppliers' reach to new customers among the Cvent Supplier Network's more than 160,000 planners, helping hotels maximize their existing sales and marketing resources. Cvent's Destination Guide provides CVBs and suppliers an additional channel for building awareness among meetings planners. With more than 20,000 searchable pages of content on meetings destinations and over 1,000 featured hotels and CVBs, it is the most comprehensive meetings guide on the market for planners, used by over 100,000 planners every month.

About Cvent

Founded in 1999, Cvent is the world's largest meetings and event management technology company and has over 1,000 employees worldwide. Cvent offers web-based software for online event registration, meeting site selection, event management, mobile apps for events, e-mail marketing, and web surveys, and helps over 10,000 clients in 90 countries manage hundreds of thousands of events, surveys and e-mail campaigns. The company has processed over $2.5 billion in online payments and has managed over 30 million event registrations and survey responses for its clients. Cvent's client base includes over 30 companies from the Fortune 100, corporations from every major industry, associations, universities, and non-profits. For more information, please visit www.cvent.com.

SOURCE Cvent