Hotel Technology Next Generation

Portsmouth, NH | Newmarket International, Inc., the leader in sales and catering software solutions for the hospitality industry, today announced its new partnership with The Knot Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT) the world’s leading wedding planning resource.

Through this new partnership, The Knot is now a MeetingBrokerSM channel partner. MeetingBroker, an innovative web-based lead management solution, directly connects meeting planners and consumers with hotels and other event venues. As a result, inquiries sent by couples from TheKnot.com will automatically be delivered online to hotels and venues that are MeetingBroker enabled. The venues will now have the unique advantage of responding quickly through an automated system. The result is a fast response to inquiring couples, making the best first impression and increasing the venue’s chance of booking their event.

With over 1 million new members a year, The Knot is the leading online wedding destination, providing couples with the most up-to-date, most convenient and most comprehensive tools and services to plan their wedding. Choosing the wedding venue is the cornerstone of the planning process. Deciding on the perfect location and date will set the tone for the rest of the planning decisions. Today’s engaged couples, stretched for time and research hungry, rely on the Internet for the majority of their planning. Newmarket allows The Knot the ability to help brides and grooms get the information they need with instant feedback from local reception venues via e-mail. It is also an added service to MeetingBroker enabled venues to easily track leads coming from their vendor profiles on TheKnot.com.

“The Knot remains committed to providing today’s busy couples with the latest tools and services to plan their wedding,” said David Liu, CEO, The Knot Inc. “The wedding reception is not only the biggest expense of the wedding day it is also the first major wedding decision. We are thrilled to partner with Newmarket to help easily connect to-be-wed couples with local wedding venues and hotels.”

In today’s market, hotels and event venues need to respond quickly to leads and inquiries. This is especially true in the competitive wedding market. To-be-wed couples want to feel assured that their business and wedding experience is the first priority with prospective suppliers. Equally important, suppliers need a feature rich, automated method of responding to, tracking, and measuring leads independent of disparate systems such as email. MeetingBroker is that solution. With assignment and escalation rules, leads can be funneled directly to the supplier’s wedding specialist, streamlining the sales process and giving suppliers the first response advantage. Suppliers will also have a dynamic system for tracking the volume of leads they are receiving from The Knot. Where responsiveness can often mean the difference between business won and lost, the MeetingBroker and The Knot integration gives suppliers an unrivaled competitive advantage.

“We are proud to now offer The Knot as a sales channel for hotel suppliers using our MeetingBroker solution,” said Sean O’Neill, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Newmarket International, Inc. “We are the only vendor giving suppliers such direct access to highly qualified wedding customers and prospects. This partnership provides our customers with a great competitive edge in the lucrative wedding market.”

About TheKnot, Inc.
The Knot, Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT; ) is a leading lifestage media company. The Company's flagship brand, The Knot, is the nation's leading wedding resource, reaching well over a million engaged couples each year through the #1 wedding website TheKnot.com. Other Knot brand products include The Knot national and local magazines, The Knot books (published by Random House and Chronicle) and television programming bearing The Knot name (aired on the Style and Comcast Networks). The Company also owns WeddingChannel.com, the most visited wedding gift registry website. The Company's Nest brand focuses on the newlywed-to-pregnancy lifestage, with the popular lifestyle website TheNest.com, a home decor book series with Clarkson Potter, The Nest magazine and baby offshoot TheNestBaby.com. Also under The Knot, Inc. umbrella are WeddingTracker.com; GiftRegistryLocator.com; party planning site PartySpot.com; teen-oriented PromSpot.com; and local baby services and community site Lilaguide.com. The Knot, Inc. is based in New York and has several other offices across the country.

About Newmarket International
Newmarket International, Inc. () is the leader in delivering sales, group catering and event software solutions to the global hospitality and entertainment industries. Newmarket International’s suite of business solutions can be found in hotels, casinos, restaurants, visitor bureaus, stadiums, meeting arenas and convention centers throughout the world. Newmarket International has over 70,000 users worldwide, with over 11,000 installations in over 110 countries. Newmarket International is headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with international offices in Cologne (Germany), London, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney.

Newmarket is a registered trademark and MeetingBroker is a service mark of Newmarket International, Inc.

Contact
Elise Sherman
Marketing Programs Manager
United States - Phone: +1 (603) 436-7500
Email: esherman@newmarketinc.com