Data Doesn’t Book Meetings. People Do.

Hotel sales teams have more access to data than ever before. The challenge isn’t finding opportunities. It’s knowing what to do with them.

In this conversation, Tammy Oxentenko, Director of Sales and Marketing at Holiday Inn Portland – Columbia Riverfront, shares how her team uses Knowland to identify opportunities, monitor competitor activity, support prospecting efforts, and uncover the insights that drive group business growth. More importantly, she discusses how market intelligence fits into a broader sales strategy that includes research, relationship building, and consistent prospecting.

Watch the discussion to learn how one hotel sales team is turning data into action and creating a stronger foundation for future revenue.

Finding opportunities is important. What happens next is what drives results. Use the tips below to help your team turn market intelligence into more meaningful conversations and future bookings.

How hotel sales teams can turn market intelligence into more group bookings

Hotel sales teams today have access to more market intelligence than ever before. They can see which organizations are meeting, where they’re meeting, how often they’re meeting, and even what competitors are winning business in their market.

But identifying an account is only the first step. The real challenge begins after the opportunity is found. Too often, prospecting stops at the data. A seller identifies a company, finds a contact, sends an email, and moves on. The result is activity without strategy and a pipeline full of names that never become business.

The most successful sales teams take a different approach. They use market intelligence to build a deeper understanding of the organizations they want to work with, create more relevant outreach, and build relationships long before an RFP is submitted.

So what happens after you find an opportunity?

The answer is what separates information from revenue. Below are five practical ways hotel sales teams can turn market intelligence into stronger prospecting efforts and more group business.

Build a complete picture of the opportunity
A company name alone doesn’t tell you whether an account is worth pursuing. Before reaching out, take time to understand how the organization buys meetings and events. Review its meeting history, preferred destinations, event sizes, venue preferences, and booking patterns. Then go beyond the data.

Visit the company’s website. Explore LinkedIn. Read recent press releases and news announcements. Look for signs of growth, leadership changes, new initiatives, acquisitions, or expansion plans. These business activities often create future meeting demand. A company opening new offices may soon need training programs. A growing sales organization may be planning a kickoff meeting. A merger could create opportunities for leadership retreats and company-wide gatherings.

The goal is not simply to learn where they have met. It’s to understand why they meet and what challenges they may be trying to solve.

Use competitor activity as a roadmap
One of the most valuable prospecting signals is seeing where organizations are meeting today. If a company is booking events at a competitor property, that’s not a reason to move on. It’s evidence that meeting demand already exists. Reviewing competitor activity can help answer important questions:

• What types of organizations are choosing similar properties?
• What meeting segments are growing?
• Which accounts consistently meet in your market?
• Are there opportunities your team may be overlooking?

Years ago, understanding competitor activity often required visiting hotels and gathering information manually. Today, market intelligence gives sales teams a much broader view of what is happening across their market. The strongest sellers use that visibility to identify opportunities before they become obvious to everyone else.

Identify the people behind the meetings
One of the biggest prospecting challenges isn’t finding organizations. It’s finding the right people within them. Meeting planners are often involved in venue selection, but they are rarely the only stakeholders. Depending on the organization, procurement teams, executive assistants, operations leaders, training managers, and department heads may all influence the decision-making process.

The more complex the organization, the more important it becomes to understand who is involved and how decisions are made. This is where tools like LinkedIn and Sales Navigator can help fill in the gaps. Rather than reaching out to the first contact you find, take time to identify the people most closely connected to the opportunity you’re pursuing. The quality of your outreach often depends on the quality of your targeting.

Turn research into relevant outreach
Most hotel sales emails focus on the property. The best sales conversations focus on the prospect. Instead of leading with guestrooms, meeting space, or amenities, use the information you’ve gathered to create relevance. For example, if an organization recently expanded into a new region, mention it. If you’ve noticed they host annual training programs similar to those your property supports, reference that. If they have a history of meeting at properties comparable to yours, use that insight to create a more meaningful introduction. When outreach feels relevant, conversations become easier to start, and relationships become easier to build.

Make prospecting part of the process
Prospecting works best when it’s consistent. Many teams focus heavily on prospecting during slower periods and then abandon those efforts when business picks up. The problem is that future revenue depends on the relationships being built today. The strongest sales teams treat prospecting as an ongoing process rather than a one-time activity. They review opportunities regularly. They monitor account activity. They stay informed about market trends. They continue building relationships even when an immediate opportunity doesn’t exist. Most importantly, they understand that not every prospect is ready when they first make contact.

Timing matters. The seller who remains visible, relevant, and helpful over time is often the first person a planner thinks of when the need eventually arises.

The difference between data and revenue
Market intelligence can help hotel sales teams uncover opportunities, understand market trends, and identify organizations actively hosting meetings and events. What happens next is what makes the difference.

The teams that consistently win more group business don’t stop at the data. They use it to identify the right opportunities, build stronger relationships, and create more meaningful conversations before an RFP ever appears.

The advantage comes from combining powerful data with the ability to act on it.

Want help building a stronger group sales strategy? Reach out to our team to learn how leading hotels are using market intelligence to uncover opportunities, strengthen prospecting efforts, and win more business.

About Cendyn
Cendyn is a global hospitality cloud-based technology company that enables hotels to drive revenue, maximize profitability, and create deeper connections with guests through its integrated solutions.

Serving hoteliers for 30 years, Cendyn drives commercial success for hotels through its Find, Book, Grow promise: find the right guests; drive them to book direct, and grow loyalty and revenue across the spectrum of digital guest interactions.

Cendyn has over 32,000 customers worldwide in more than 150 countries generating more than $20 billion in annual hotel revenue. The company supports its growing customer base from locations across the globe, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bangkok, and India.