Global meetings and events management provider American Express Meetings & Events has unveiled Meetings Expert.

The program provides expert planning and sourcing resources for those meetings that may be planned outside of a managed, centralised meetings and events program.

Many departments within an organisation have the need to plan meetings.

Meetings Expert was created with those professionals in mind who may not be trained meeting planners but are tasked with the responsibility.

“As companies direct more of their attention toward meeting and expense consolidation, Meetings Expert offers solutions for those who continue to plan meetings on an ad hoc basis,” said Issa Jouaneh, vice president and general manager, American Express Meetings & Events.

“Even for companies only requiring meetings sourcing support intermittently, implementing structure around the process is important.

“We expect that the Meetings Expert experience will demonstrate the value of managing meetings and associated expenses – one of the largest categories of uncontrolled spend for most companies.”

Companies who choose to use the service can have the benefit of cost control with a focus on planning meetings that are compliant to standard meeting policy and employ leading sourcing practices.

This service connects companies with experts to negotiate all aspects of a meeting contract including conference rooms, sleeping rooms, food and beverage, and ancillary spending for events with a minimum of ten rooms per night.

Meetings Expert was piloted this year with companies in North America and is now broadly available in the United Kingdom.

Continued roll-out is expected across Europe and Australia. For those clients using the services, they have achieved an on average savings of 28 per cent per meeting.