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HotelShare Alternatives for European MICE Planners (2026)

HotelShare is a workable hotel sourcing tool, but it is not the only one and not always the right one for European MICE event teams. This guide compares HotelShare to four credible alternatives across feature depth, hotel coverage in Europe, pricing, and the kind of buyer each one fits best.

By Easy RFP team · Published 2026-05-05 · 9 min read

What HotelShare does well

HotelShare provides structured RFP templates, side-by-side proposal comparison, and contract management for hotel and venue sourcing. It integrates with the Cvent ecosystem and is widely adopted by US-based corporate event teams. For planners already running Cvent for registration and onsite, HotelShare integrates cleanly without a separate vendor relationship.

Strengths: large hotel network coverage in North America, mature template library, deep contract clause management, established API integrations with downstream platforms like SAP Concur and Workday for spend approval flows.

Where it is less strong: pricing transparency for new buyers, European hotel coverage beyond chain inventory, and operational simplicity for small teams without dedicated meeting management headcount.

Why European MICE teams sometimes look elsewhere

European corporate event teams have a different operational reality than their US counterparts. They source across more cities and countries per event cycle, deal with more independent and boutique hotels, and operate under GDPR data-handling constraints that affect what data crosses borders and how vendors process it.

Tools optimised for North American corporate workflows often have lighter European hotel inventory outside the chain brands. They may also process data through US infrastructure in ways that complicate GDPR risk reviews for European procurement teams. Neither is a deal-breaker, but they are real considerations.

Pricing presented in USD with annual contracts in the USD 12-25k range fits some European corporate budgets and not others. Many European MICE teams operate with smaller per-team SaaS budgets and prefer monthly billing in EUR with clearer entry tiers.

Five alternatives to consider

1. Easy RFP. EU-based, EUR pricing, GDPR-first by default. Free plan covers 1 RFP per month with 3 hotel invitations; Pro at EUR 45/mo unlocks unlimited RFPs and up to 15 hotels per RFP. Coverage strength is European hotel inventory including independents and boutiques. Best fit: small to mid-sized European event teams or teams running mostly European events. Less fit if your inventory needs are heavily North American.

2. MeetingPackage. Venue-side marketplace where hotels publish meeting space availability and pricing directly. Good when planners want to compare meeting space inventory specifically rather than full corporate event RFPs. Best fit: planners sourcing meetings under 50 attendees where the variable is meeting space availability across cities. Less fit when full event sourcing with rooming and F&B packages is the workflow.

3. Cvent (parent company). The full enterprise platform including HotelShare. Best fit if the team already operates registration, onsite, and reporting in Cvent and wants the integrated workflow. Less fit if HotelShare in isolation is the only need; the licensing and onboarding cost of the full Cvent platform overshoots most teams who just want hotel sourcing.

4. Hopin Venues (formerly Bizly). Tablet/mobile-first sourcing tool for smaller corporate events and offsite formats. Best fit: planners running 5-50 attendee events who want fast venue sourcing with light operational overhead. Less fit for events above 100 attendees or anything with complex room block logic.

5. Manual process with Google Sheets and an inbox. Free, slow, and labour-intensive but still the dominant workflow at small organisations. Best fit: organisations running fewer than 6 hotel events per year where the hours saved by software does not justify the licence cost. Less fit if event volume is even moderately recurring.

Decision framework: which one fits you

Step 1: where are your hotels? Tally the country distribution of the venues your team has booked in the last 18 months. If 70%+ are European, prioritise tools with strong European inventory like Easy RFP or MeetingPackage. If 60%+ are North American, HotelShare and Cvent retain their advantage.

Step 2: what is your event volume? Under 6 hotel events per year, software ROI is marginal. 6-24 events per year, a tool in the EUR 40-150 per month range pays for itself in saved hours within 3-4 events. Above 24 events per year, full enterprise tools start making sense.

Step 3: do you already operate in a parent platform? If your team uses Cvent for registration and onsite, HotelShare integrated has lower switching cost than even cheaper alternatives. If you do not, the integration argument is moot.

Step 4: what is your GDPR risk posture? European procurement teams should review where data is processed, where logs are stored, and what subprocessors are involved. EU-based tools generally have a simpler GDPR review path. US-based tools are typically GDPR-compliant but require more documentation.

Step 5: trial it on one real event. The decision framework above narrows the candidates from five to two. The next step is running one real RFP through each candidate and comparing the experience. Easy RFP and HotelShare both offer free or trial access; MeetingPackage and Bizly have similar entry points.

Total cost of ownership comparison (3-year, mid-sized team)

Mid-sized assumption: one event manager, 18 hotel events per year, ~80 attendees per event on average.

HotelShare standalone licence: enterprise-tier annual contracts. 3-year TCO (specific figures vary by contract; vendors do not publish official pricing — see G2)-42,000 (about EUR 23,500-39,000).

Easy RFP Pro: EUR 540 per year (single seat). 3-year TCO EUR 1,620.

MeetingPackage: enterprise-tier pricing (vendor does not publish official rates)for buyers (venue-side monetisation), but limited to meeting-space-led sourcing.

Cvent full platform: enterprise-tier annual contracts for the modules typically needed. 3-year TCO (specific figures vary by contract; vendors do not publish official pricing — see G2)(about EUR 69,500+).

Manual process: EUR 0 in software, but at 18 events per year with an estimated 8 saved hours per event using software, the time cost is approximately EUR 5,400 per year at EUR 35/hour fully-loaded planner cost. 3-year TCO EUR 16,200.

Net: for a mid-sized European event team, the cost spread between the cheapest software option (Easy RFP at EUR 1,620 over 3 years) and the most expensive (Cvent at enterprise-tier pricing (vendor does not publish official rates)+) is about 42x. The decision is rarely about cost alone - it is about feature fit and inventory coverage - but the cost dimension is large enough that it deserves explicit acknowledgement in the procurement review.

How to evaluate without burning a quarter on demos

Vendor demos are useful but they are pitched, not honest. The faster path is running one real event RFP through a free or trial version of the top two candidates from the framework above. Two weeks per tool, one event each, then decide.

What to test in the trial: hotel inventory coverage in your real cities, proposal turnaround time, side-by-side comparison usability, contract clause handling, downstream integration with your accounting and travel platforms.

What not to over-weight in the trial: minor UI preferences, polish of marketing site (a polished marketing site does not mean a polished tool), and exactly which logos appear on the homepage. These are signals but they are not the decision.

Frequently asked questions

Does HotelShare include European hotels?

Yes, but coverage is uneven across markets. Strong in chain inventory in major capitals; lighter on independents and boutiques outside the top tier. Run a one-event trial in your specific cities to validate.

Can I use Easy RFP and HotelShare together?

Some teams do, especially during a transition. Use the better-fit tool for each event type - for example HotelShare for North American conferences integrated with Cvent registration, Easy RFP for European offsites where independent hotel coverage matters.

Is MeetingPackage really free for planners?

Yes. MeetingPackage monetises on the venue side via commission. Planners use it without licence fee. The limitation is that it covers only venues that have signed up to publish inventory; it is not a full open-market RFP tool.

How does Easy RFP make money if the Free plan is generous?

Free plan is genuinely free with usage limits (1 RFP per month, 3 hotels per RFP). Most active corporate event teams quickly need more than that and upgrade to Pro at EUR 45/mo. Conversion economics are public in the Easy RFP pricing strategy doc.

What about Groupize?

Groupize is another option, primarily US-focused. The decision framework above applies - review hotel coverage in your real cities, integration with platforms you already operate, and total cost. Groupize sits closest to HotelShare in feature scope.