CWT Meeting Optimizer - Carlson Wagonlit Travel

CWT Can Help Companies Save
up to 25% on Meetings and Events Spending
with CWT Meeting Optimizer
• Available today, CWT Meeting Optimizer helps any individual in a company
plan their meetings.
• It gives top destinations by air and hotel costs, mileage, or CO emissions
using CWT’s wealth of data.
• It helps travel managers better understand what their companies are spending
on meetings.
AMSTERDAM, April 18, 2012 – Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), a global leader
specialized in managing business travel and meetings and events, announced today that
CWT Meeting Optimizer is now available for all CWT clients. This is the first in a series of
meetings products to be introduced this year as a complementary offering to CWT
Meetings & Events. CWT Meeting Optimizer was developed in partnership with Starcite®,
part of Active Network, and a leader in strategic meetings management.
Finding the best place for a meeting
CWT Meeting Optimizer helps individual organizers and professional meeting planners
easily find the best location for a meeting of any size. To plan a meeting, meeting
arrangers simply enter the number of participants, their locations and the meeting dates.
CWT Meeting Optimizer then generates a list of worldwide destinations, including
telepresence rooms, to give meeting organizers a prioritized list of places to hold their
meeting.
Using CWT’s extensive range of data – over 14 million hotel transactions and 34 million
air transactions* – CWT Meeting Optimizer instantly compares nearly 2000 global
destinations to determine the smartest and most cost-effective meeting destination.
Helping companies achieve savings
CWT calculated the cost of 15 hypothetical international
meetings in 2011 using no planning tool, and then
estimated the cost of the same meeting benchmarked
and planned using CWT Meeting Optimizer. The results
showed that an average saving of 25 percent could have
been achieved.
Based on a study conducted by the CWT Travel
Management Institute, companies spend on average almost 1.5 percent of their annual
revenues on meetings and events, yet this budget is difficult to track because meetings
are not always managed centrally. With CWT Meeting Optimizer, planning meetings
becomes an integral part of a company’s travel program as the tool will be accessible
through CWT’s exclusive client interface, CWT Portal.
CWT Meeting Optimizer is based on new generation technology and a patent-pending
algorithm. Additional features will be added over the coming months.
CWT will be present at the IMEX 2012 show in Frankfurt May 22 – 24.
For a live demo of CWT Meeting Optimizer, please contact us!
*CWT 2011 air and hotel transaction figures for wholly owned operations and joint ventures

About Carlson Wagonlit Travel
CWT is a global leader specialized in managing business travel and meetings and events.
CWT serves companies, government institutions and non-governmental organizations of
all sizes in more than 150 countries and territories. By leveraging both the expertise of
its people and leading-edge technology, CWT helps clients derive the greatest value from
their travel program in terms of savings, service, security and sustainability. The
company is also committed to providing best-in-class service and assistance to travelers.
CWT services and solutions comprise Traveler & Transaction Services, Program
Optimization, Safety & Security, Meetings & Events and Energy Services. In 2011, sales
volume for wholly owned operations and joint ventures totaled US$28.0 billion. For more
information about CWT, please visit our global website at www.carlsonwagonlit.com.
Follow us on Twitter @CarlsonWagonlit.
Media Contact
Natasha Harvey
CWT Global
+ 33 1 41 33 62 34 (office)
+ 33 6 74 94 23 81 (mobile)
nharvey@carlsonwagonlit.com
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