Conference & Meetings World Issue 103 | страница 26

Cvent CONNECT Europe
Customers ‘find religion’ at Cvent CONNECT Europe
THE CVENT ECOSYSTEM TAKES THE BATTLE TO SHINE LIGHT ON UNBRIDLED MEETINGS SPEND TO NEW
LEVELS IN LONDON, WITH BIGGEST EUROPEAN EVENT YET. PAUL COLSTON REPORTS
ore than 1,200 meeting,
event and hospitality
professionals from across
Europe and the UK
attended Cvent CONNECT Europe
from 14-16 October, at the
InterContinental London – The O2. The
annual event is now triple the size of its
inaugural edition in 2017.
The event technology conference this
year opened out more to the wider
industry, from what started off as a
Cvent-centric event providing an
opportunity to discover the latest trends
in the meetings and hospitality
industries, as well as Cvent’s own
products.
This year there were 70 workshops
and sessions led by both Cvent experts
and industry influencers. Baroness
Karren Brady was a keynote speaker this
year and other top speakers included
Lara Morgan, founder and former CEO
of Pacific Direct Group Ltd and June
Sarpong, MBE - the newly appointed
BBC Director of Creative Diversity. All
highlighted the importance of great
leadership and entrepreneurial spirit to
drive business success.
Cvent CEO and Founder, Reggie
Aggarwal, launched the conference with
a call to MICE professionals worldwide
to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit
and uncover new business opportunities
to capitalise on the growing MICE
industry, which he said would reach
US$1,439.3bn by 2025. Reflecting on
Cvent’s 20 years in business, Aggarwal
highlighted lessons he has learned from
being near bankruptcy to becoming a
global event and hospitality technology
leader, and offered entrepreneurial
takeaways to drive success.
Cvent Senior Vice-President and Chief
Marketing Officer Patrick Smith told
CMW that Cvent was today about
connecting the ecosystem of organisers.
The company’s systems, he said, were
designed to manage the ‘chaos’ of the
whole meetings play. “Internally a lot of
companies turn to us because meetings
are one of the last areas of spend they
don’t have answers to,” Smith said.
“Cvent now has a play both internally
Below: Baroness
Karren Brady, star
of the BBC’s “The
Apprentice” on
stage of Cvent
CONNECT Europe
giving a keynote
speech
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ISSUE 103
and externally. It is the system of record
for internal events and external events.
Cvent is the one place to understand
what is happening with attendees, from
checking in to which sessions were
attended, providing a full picture. It
changes the game. We can now take
event information that was not
previously part of marketing intelligence
and add it in.
“We want to have the world’s broadest
and deepest platform to run an entire
event programme. Then we want to have
the world’s broadest and deepest solution
set to win and manage MICE business
– the hospitality cloud side.”
Smith says Cvent is also rolling out
online communities to fully connect the
ecosystem. “Some of the most powerful
answers you can get are from a peer who
has done what you’re doing.”