Northstar Media Group Chooses Zentila to Offer Dynamic Sourcing and Booking on Facility Search Site

April 15, 2013

ORLANDO, Fla. -- April 15, 2013 -- Northstar Travel Media, the world’s leading business-to-business media company serving the travel and meetings industries, has entered into a partnership with Zentila, the first online sourcing and booking solution for meeting planners, to offer its dynamic sourcing and booking platform on Northstar’s Successful Meetings and Meetings and Conventions online facility search.   The announcement was made by Bernard “Bernie” Schraer, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of Northstar Media Group.

The new service will offer the more than 400,000 meeting planners who frequent the Northstar family of sites for news and information the ability to easily source and book their meetings directly from the facility search page using Zentila’s intuitive eRFP “Genie” and other tools.    Zentila’s award-winning, user-designed platform is not only sleek and super-intuitive, but widely recognized as the “smartest sourcing search engine” in the industry.

“Communicating travel information has been Northstar’s core competency for more than 50 years, and we are constantly looking to enhance our offerings,” said Schraer. “Zentila is a natural evolution of our services, enabling us to essentially provide a ‘one-stop-shopping’ experience for our meeting planner users.”

“As the leader in business travel media, we reviewed the available tools, all of which focused solely on the eRFP.  Zentila’s offerings go well beyond that.  It’s the first solution that takes the planner down a path from sourcing to booking – creating a user experience that’s as productive as it is engaging.  The Zentila model gets to the heart of successfully connecting the planner and the property, avoiding the considerable amount of RFP requests that fall into the abyss.” Schraer said.

“We’ve always admired Northstar for its forward thinking, innovation and thought leadership,” said Mike Mason, ZEO and Founder of Zentila.  “And that’s how we aspire to be thought of as well.  We couldn’t be in better company and are excited to be a part of Northstar’s re-imagined online experience.”

About Zentila

Based in Orlando, Fla., Zentila is the brainchild of hospitality industry veteran Mike Mason, who identified a need to ease the pain of planning meetings.  The answer?  Zentila, which provides meeting planning solutions for companies and individuals through a free-to-use, super-intuitive strategic meetings management solution. User-friendly planning and administration tools add transparency to company meeting activities, reducing risk and the costs associated with sourcing and contracting meetings and venues. Zentila features the most up-to-date hotel inventory, with descriptions and images for every meeting hotel in the country. Unique search filters and social elements make Zentila’s meeting hotel search engine the smartest on the planet.  For more information, visit www.zentila.com or call (407) 656-5683.

About Northstar Travel Media

Northstar Travel Media is the leading provider of news, information, data and customized marketing solutions for the travel, meetings and hospitality industries and parent of brands Travel Weekly, Business Travel News, Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Incentive and TravelAge West. NTM’s electronic directories — Travel Weekly’s Hotel & Travel Index , M&C Facilities Search and Successful Meetings Facilities Search— provide in-depth data on hotels, meeting and convention properties, and business travel in the United States and internationally. In addition to its directories and periodicals, NTM publishes a number of online subscription information resources, including travel42, Weissmann Reports, STAR Service Online, Intelliguide Corporate and BTP24. Northstar also is an industry leader in marketing services, custom communications, content licensing and database management serving the travel and meetings industries. Additionally, Northstar acquired PhoCusWright, the premier global travel, tourism and hospitality research and event business at the intersection of the Internet and the global travel industry. Based in Secaucus, New Jersey, the company also has offices in New York, Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Los Angeles; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Northstar Travel Media, LLC is a portfolio company of The Wicks Group, a private equity firm in the media, education and information industries.