The venue sourcing market in Europe is beginning to stabilise and demand is returning. In-person meetings have reclaimed their position at the centre of corporate event strategy. But behind the steady surface, buyer behaviour is changing. Planners are approaching sourcing with a more structured, methodical, and risk-conscious mindset than before.
For venues and hotels, these changes present both challenges and opportunities. Venues that understand how planners are now thinking and adjust their positioning accordingly will capture more business as the market continues to normalise.
Here are the seven most important shifts venues need to understand and adapt to as they compete for the European event business in 2025.
1. Respond faster
Planners are building longer booking windows into their calendars. Many are locking in venues six to twelve months in advance, and a significant share are booking even further out. The short-notice scramble that dominated post-pandemic recovery has eased. But venues shouldn’t mistake longer lead times for slower decision-making.
Once planners begin sourcing, they expect rapid responses. Delays in proposals still knock venues out of contention. In our Cvent-commissioned March 2025 EMEA Pulse Survey, nearly 70% of European planners reported they’re actively sourcing events, with many working more than a year out. Yet speed remains a decisive factor when shortlisting venues.
Hotels that can organise internal processes to turn around full, accurate proposals quickly are winning these early sourcing rounds. That requires better internal coordination across sales, revenue management, and operations to obtain firm answers for proposals from the outset rather than after multiple rounds of clarification.
2. Sell configurability, not just capacity
Growth expectations are rising, but planners remain cautious. Many anticipate higher attendance numbers for 2025, but few are building aggressive expansion assumptions into their contracts. Instead, they’re asking for flexibility: the ability to scale attendance up or down depending on final registration levels.
That puts new pressure on how venues sell their space. It’s no longer enough to offer square footage and maximum capacities. What planners want to know is how spaces can adapt: how rooms can be divided or expanded, how setups can be reconfigured late in the cycle, and how room blocks can adjust as attendee counts change.
Venues must present clear, scalable space plans with defined pricing models that account for reasonable adjustments to give planners confidence to commit without feeling locked into rigid terms. This reduces friction both during initial contracting and closer to event delivery when final numbers settle.
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3. Design spaces for human interaction
The reasons planners are investing in live events have shifted. Face-to-face meetings are no longer primarily about immediate business transactions. Networking has emerged as the number one objective, followed by education, professional development, and community-building. Planners are building programmes to facilitate conversations.
For venues, this changes how space is evaluated. Planners are looking closely at how properties help foster informal interaction. They want open spaces that allow for casual discussions, breakout areas positioned close to main sessions, and layouts that naturally encourage people to mingle between scheduled programming.
Hotels that lean into this dynamic can position themselves as partners in delivering interactive attendee experiences. Simply listing room capacities and AV packages no longer addresses the planner’s primary objectives.
4. Remove pricing ambiguity
Cost pressure remains the most consistent source of planner frustration. Food and beverage pricing continues to climb. Accommodation rates are holding at high levels across many European markets. As prices move, planners are often forced to adjust their events design mid-process. What they’re no longer willing to accept is ambiguity.
Incomplete proposals, vague estimates, and unquoted fees create immediate distrust. Pricing uncertainty erodes confidence quickly. Venues that cannot clearly articulate full cost structures, with transparent breakdowns across F&B, meeting space, AV, service charges, and taxes, are at a distinct disadvantage.
Planners need to be able to present full budget models internally before contracts are signed. Venues that simplify this process by delivering complete financial transparency upfront and removing negotiation uncertainty often win long before final pricing discussions even begin.
5. Build compliance readiness into the sales process
Venue sourcing is no longer just about pricing and availability. Planners are handling complex internal compliance requirements that include data security, accessibility, labour policies, and supplier diversity. These risk filters may not always appear in the initial RFP, but they are considered important during approvals.
Hotels that can provide clear documentation on cybersecurity protocols, accessibility standards, sustainability policies, and ethical labour practices help planners align with corporate policies. Instead of waiting for planners to request this documentation late in the cycle, leading venues are proactively packaging compliance information as part of their standard proposal materials. This simplifies the sourcing process for them and removes unnecessary barriers to contract finalisation.
6. Maintain verified sustainability credentials
Sustainability has become an operational requirement, not a positioning statement. Many corporate clients now have formal sustainability filters embedded directly into their sourcing platforms and procurement systems. If a venue lacks verifiable certification or reporting, it may not even appear in filtered searches.
According to the survey, 64% of European planners report that formal sustainability policies are already baked into their sourcing processes. This is not window dressing. Without formal credentials, venues are increasingly invisible during the earliest stages of RFP filtering.
Properties that maintain current certification, track, and report carbon impact, and document waste reduction initiatives impact how sourcing teams are shortlisting venues. Sustainability compliance is a key criteria for determining which properties are considered in the first place.
7. Capture redirected global demand as political risk shifts
While most venue sourcing shifts are operational, geopolitical factors are starting to redirect some international meeting activity. In particular, a significant share of EMEA planners report lower demand for events in the U.S. due to political uncertainty and policy shifts.
For European venues, this presents a growth opportunity. Multinational organisations that might have held global leadership meetings or partner summits in the U.S. may now look to consolidate more of that activity within EMEA. Venues positioned to serve international corporate groups, with multilingual staff, international accessibility, and flexible contracting models, can capitalise on this opportunity and absorb portions of this redirected demand.
Venues that monitor these shifts closely and build targeted outreach programmes for multinational planners can showcase their properties as attractive alternatives for global meetings.
The new sourcing playbook for European venues
Venue sourcing in Europe has entered a more mature and disciplined phase. The surface stability of rising in-person demand masks the deeper changes happening inside procurement teams.
What venues are really competing for now is trust. Trust that pricing is fully transparent. Trust that space design serves attendees' needs. Trust that compliance standards are in order. Trust that sustainability credentials are fully documented.
Venues that continue to rely on slow proposals, vague pricing, limited flexibility and generic space selling will steadily lose relevance as planners apply stricter sourcing criteria. Properties that simplify the buying process, address compliance directly and become frictionless partners will attract more attention.
For a deeper look at how planners are evaluating venues today, including full data on sourcing timelines, compliance priorities, and sustainability adoption, download the full March 2025 EMEA Pulse Survey report.
About the Author
Diana Tamboly is Field Marketing Manager, Europe for Cvent's Hospitality Cloud business in Europe. In her role, she's responsible for setting and delivering the strategic marketing direction for Venue Directory, a Cvent company.
