Cendyn acquired Knowland, a data and hospitality technology company that tracks meetings and events. The acquisition enables Cendyn to increase its sales prospects, particularly in the meetings, incentives, conferences and events sector.
Knowland’s platform includes meeting and event data from more than 7,500 hotels in the United States and a handful of international markets. Its products connect hotels with market insights to drive more group sales.
“To effectively sell group business, hoteliers need immediate access to data, and Knowland’s event intelligence platform is the clear market leader in this space. Its sales intelligence complements our sales CRM to help hoteliers find their target audience. Then , hoteliers can complete the booking process using our Proposals and Grouprev platforms.
Knowland provides data insights on the state of the meetings and events industry. This message is especially important as the industry recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
Together with Amadeus, it publishes the Hotel Group and Business Performance Index, which features meetings, events and corporate market trends. In addition, its U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast and monthly meetings and events reports include industry data. Trend alerts, webcasts, interactive forecasts and perspectives from industry leaders are also popular among meeting professionals.
Jeff Bzdawka, who has served as CEO of Knowland since 2021, will step down in mid-October. In an August 2022 Skift Meetings podcast hosted by Bzdawka, he talked about the importance of leveraging technology to enhance attendee experience, operational efficiency, and business results. He emphasized that technology is key to taking an event from good to great, and that poorly implemented technology can degrade the experience.
“While technology shouldn’t be the focus, it can enable events. Good technology that doesn’t work or is too complex can actually turn a good meeting into a bad one. You can listen here.
