Elite Meetings International, a provider of integrated solutions for meeting and hospitality professionals, announced at The Motivation Show in Chicago last week a new electronic RFP process, called SpeedRFP, which lets meeting professionals create, submit, and track RFPs from one central dashboard.

The free tool, launching in the first quarter of 2010, has some promising features, including the use of APEX data standards, which allows RFP data to flow into hotel sales management systems rather than being rekeyed on site. Read more.

After two years in development, a beta version of the only e-RFP Web site exclusively for the cruise industry is up and running. With up-to-date specs and itineraries on more than 250 ships that accommodate meetings and a sophisticated search engine, the new tool, Seasite.com, aims to change the way meeting professionals get their information about cruise options. Here’s how it works.

A new Carlson Marketing–Unisfair partnership is the latest in a string of affiliations between major meetings management companies and players in the virtual event space. Here’s the news on Carlson’s plan to bring “virtual engagement” to clients, overlaying its meeting strategy, marketing, and measurement know-how on the virtual experience, and an explanation of the Unisfair tool.

We’re not saying you have to buy a technology package to embrace strategic meetings management—many companies (and more and more associations) design their own tools—but without some kind of system to register meetings, enforce meeting policy, and report on meeting spend throughout an organization, an SMM initiative is dead in the water.

Here’s our unbiased buyer’s guide report on six leading SMM tools, which compares each of their meeting request and approval capabilities; site search and e-RFP functionality; attendee registration and surveys; and consolidated, custom reporting on meeting spend.

A while back I wrote about the launch of a new online webinar directory in Europe. Now we have a new entrant in the field here in the United States. WebinarHero offers businesses the opportunity not only to list their webinars in a searchable directory, but to help promote them for extra visibility online. While you may know the basics of this kind of service, there are some interesting twists to this newcomer.