Hotel sales & event management glossary
Definitions for the terminology hospitality commercial teams use every day — BEO, MICE, GSO, RFP, S&C, M&E, CRS, CDP, PMS and the platforms behind them.
Each entry links to a deeper FAQ where one exists. If you're new to hospitality software or are evaluating S&C and MICE platforms (Thynk, Momentus, Amadeus Delphi, Event Temple, MeetingPackage, Tripleseat, Opera OSEM), this glossary covers the vocabulary you'll see in every RFP, contract and feature comparison.
Quick index
- BEO— also: Banquet Event Order
A Banquet Event Order (BEO) is the contractual document that summarises every detail of a catered event for the operations team — menus, beverage selections, AV requirements, room sets, timing, headcount, billing instructions and special requests. Signed BEOs route through Sertifi or DocuSign and sync to the property management system where supported.
- S&C— also: Sales & Catering
Sales & Catering (S&C) is the discipline (and the software category) that combines hotel sales workflows with banquet, catering and event operations. An S&C platform manages opportunities, BEOs, group blocks, banquet menus, AV catalogue and catering contracts in a single workflow.
- MICE— also: Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions
MICE is the segment of hospitality covering Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions — high-value group business with complex sourcing, contracting and operations. MICE software supports RFP capture, proposal automation, group blocks, BEOs and post-event reporting.
- M&E— also: Meetings & Events
Meetings & Events (M&E) is the umbrella term for the meeting, conference and event business at a hotel or venue. M&E platforms manage inbound inquiries, instant booking, opportunity workflows, BEOs and post-event analytics.
- GSO— also: Group Sales Office
A Group Sales Office (GSO) is the centralised team that handles inbound group business across multiple properties in a hotel chain. GSO workflows include lead routing, territory rules, central reservation desk operations and brand-level pipeline reporting.
- RFP— also: Request for Proposal
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is the formal inquiry a meeting planner sends to candidate hotels or venues. RFPs include dates, room nights, meeting space requirements, F&B needs and a deadline. Modern hotel sales platforms auto-import RFPs from Cvent Supplier Network and convert them to Salesforce opportunities.
- Group block
A group block is a set of rooms held for a single piece of group business — a conference, a wedding, an incentive trip. Group blocks have a contracted rate, a cut-off date and a pickup curve that the revenue team monitors against forecast.
- Pickup
Pickup measures how many rooms in a group block have actually been booked by the time of the event. Hotels track pickup against the contracted block to manage risk, attrition and rebooking.
- Pace
Pace measures group room nights or revenue on the books for a future date, compared to the same point in time in prior years. A pace report tells revenue and commercial teams whether group bookings are tracking ahead, on or behind plan.
- ADR— also: Average Daily Rate
Average Daily Rate (ADR) is the average revenue earned per occupied room over a given period. ADR is a primary input to RevPAR and a core KPI for revenue management.
- RevPAR— also: Revenue per Available Room
Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) is the standard yield metric for hotels — total room revenue divided by available rooms. RevPAR combines occupancy and ADR into one number.
- TRevPAR— also: Total Revenue per Available Room
Total Revenue per Available Room (TRevPAR) extends RevPAR to include F&B and ancillary revenue per available room. TRevPAR is increasingly used as a holistic performance metric in M&E-heavy properties.
- Attrition
Attrition is the gap between a contracted group block and the rooms actually picked up by the group. Group contracts often include an attrition clause that obliges the group to pay for rooms below an agreed threshold.
- Rooming list
A rooming list is the document a group submits to a hotel listing every individual guest who will occupy a room within the group block, with arrival and departure dates and special requests.
- Cut-off date
The cut-off date is the deadline before a group event after which unbooked rooms in the block are released back to inventory. Pickup pacing relative to the cut-off is a key revenue management lever.
- PMS— also: Property Management System
A Property Management System (PMS) is the operational system of record for a hotel — reservations, check-in/out, room inventory, housekeeping, folio and billing. Common PMS systems include Opera Cloud, Opera OHIP, Mews, Stayntouch, SIHOT and Protel.
- CRS— also: Central Reservation System
A Central Reservation System (CRS) is the multi-property reservation engine that distributes inventory and rates across direct booking, OTAs and GDS channels. CRS sits in front of the PMS and provides a single source of truth for availability.
- CRM— also: Customer Relationship Management
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system manages accounts, contacts, opportunities and the sales pipeline. In hospitality, CRM extends into S&C, BEO management, group blocks and post-event analytics. Salesforce-native hospitality CRMs build directly on the Salesforce platform.
- CDP— also: Customer Data Platform
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) unifies guest profiles across channels — booking systems, loyalty, marketing, on-property data — into one identity per guest. CDPs power personalisation, marketing automation and direct-booking conversion.
- OTA— also: Online Travel Agency
An Online Travel Agency (OTA) is a third-party distribution channel that sells hotel inventory — Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, Hotels.com. OTAs charge a commission and compete with direct booking.
- Channel manager
A channel manager distributes rates and inventory across OTAs, GDS and direct booking channels from a single source of truth — typically the CRS or PMS. Channel managers prevent rate parity issues and over-bookings.
- OHIP— also: Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform
Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform (OHIP) is the API layer Oracle ships with Opera Cloud. OHIP exposes reservations, profiles, rates and folio data to third-party systems via REST APIs.
- Opera— also: Oracle Opera PMS
Opera (Oracle Opera PMS, including Opera Cloud) is one of the dominant property management systems in global hospitality. Thynk integrates natively with Opera Cloud via OHIP.
- Mews
Mews is a modern cloud-native property management system widely adopted by independent and lifestyle hotel brands. Thynk has a native Mews integration for reservation and profile sync.
- Cvent
Cvent is the dominant sourcing platform for meetings and events. Hotels list their venues on the Cvent Supplier Network to receive inbound RFPs from corporate planners. Native Cvent integration auto-imports RFPs into Salesforce as opportunities.
- Cvent Supplier Network
The Cvent Supplier Network is the marketplace within Cvent where corporate meeting planners source venues by destination, capacity, dates and budget. Hotels participate to capture inbound MICE demand.
- MeetingPackage
MeetingPackage is an instant venue-booking platform that publishes branded venue pages and distributes meeting-room availability through OTAs. Thynk has a native MeetingPackage integration so inbound inquiries land in Salesforce as opportunities.
- Knowland
Knowland is a market intelligence platform for hotel sales teams that surfaces account-level group meeting data — who is meeting where, when, and at what scale.
- Sertifi
Sertifi is a contract-signing and payment-authorisation platform widely used by hotel sales teams for signed proposals, BEOs and group contracts. Thynk has a native Sertifi integration.
- Salesforce-native
A Salesforce-native application is delivered as a managed package on the Salesforce platform. Every record (account, contact, opportunity, event) is a Salesforce object, and the application inherits Salesforce identity, security, automation, AppExchange and AI Cloud.
- Managed package
A managed package is the standard distribution model for Salesforce-native applications. It bundles custom objects, code, automation and UI components for installation into a Salesforce org via the AppExchange.
- AppExchange
The Salesforce AppExchange is the marketplace for managed-package applications and integrations that extend the Salesforce platform.
- Salesforce Hyperforce
Hyperforce is Salesforce's public-cloud architecture for hosting customer orgs on AWS and other hyperscalers, with regional data residency. Thynk customers can pin data to the EU or US.
- Einstein— also: Salesforce Einstein AI
Salesforce Einstein is Salesforce's AI layer, covering lead scoring, opportunity insights, next-best-action and generative-AI features. Hospitality use cases include lead scoring on inbound RFPs and predictive forecasting.
- Tableau
Tableau is Salesforce's enterprise analytics platform. Hotel groups use Tableau (and the bundled CRM Analytics) for real-time multi-property pace, pickup and revenue dashboards on top of Thynk data.
- MuleSoft
MuleSoft is Salesforce's enterprise integration platform. Hotel groups use MuleSoft to integrate Salesforce-native applications like Thynk with custom systems, data lakes or legacy ERPs.
- GDPR— also: General Data Protection Regulation
GDPR is the EU regulation governing the processing of personal data of EU residents. Hospitality CRMs operate as Data Processors under GDPR; Thynk supports subject access workflows and EU data residency on Salesforce Hyperforce.
- ISO 27001
ISO 27001 is the international standard for information security management. Salesforce holds an ISO 27001 attestation, which Thynk inherits as a managed package and extends with its own SOC 2 controls.
- SOC 2
SOC 2 is an audit standard for service organisations covering security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. Hospitality buyers commonly require SOC 2 Type II evidence from CRM vendors.
- AES-256
AES-256 is the encryption standard for data at rest used across the Thynk platform. Combined with TLS 1.2+ in transit, AES-256 is the baseline for hospitality data security and a common procurement requirement.
- Lead routing
Lead routing is the automated assignment of inbound leads (RFPs, web inquiries, Cvent submissions) to the right sales manager based on territory, segment, property and capacity rules. GSOs use lead routing to balance workload and shorten response times.
- Response time SLA
A response time SLA is the maximum elapsed time between inbound RFP and first response. Industry benchmarks for MICE response are under 24 hours; faster responders win a disproportionate share of business.
- Direct booking engine
A direct booking engine is the on-property reservation widget that lets guests book without going through an OTA. Direct bookings carry no OTA commission and provide first-party guest data.
- Multi-property
Multi-property describes hospitality estates with two or more hotels under common commercial control. Multi-property platforms support brand and region hierarchies, consolidated reporting and cross-property pipeline visibility.
- Hospitality CRM
A hospitality CRM is a customer relationship management system purpose-built for hotels, resorts and venues — extending standard CRM with S&C, group blocks, BEOs, GSO workflows and PMS / CRS integration.
Don't see a term?
The hospitality vocabulary is large. If a term you care about isn't here, email support@thynk.cloud and we'll add it. The glossary is regenerated from the live database alongside the FAQ knowledge base.