Room for Savings: Optimizing Hotel Spend - Carlson

The survey also indicates that travelers who
book non-preferred hotels are more priceconscious
than other travelers and stay at
lower-category hotels (Figure 106). Moreover,
they are more likely to be domestic travelers,
supporting the point made earlier (Page 71) that
short-haul travelers are happy to stay in lowercategory
hotels than long-haul travelers. Travel
managers may wish to adjust their programs to
include a greater number of lower-category
hotels if necessary.
When travelers book outside the preferred
channels, they rarely use Web booking sites or
hotels’ branded Websites, contrary to popular
belief. Instead, they prefer to contact hotels
directly by phone, email or fax (Figure 107).
Figure 106: Travelers who book non-preferred
hotels tend to stay at lower- category properties
Source: CWT Travel Management Institute
Based on a survey of travelers (3,682 responses)
Figure 107: When travelers book outside preferred channels, they rarely use Web booking
sites or hotels’ branded Websites
Preferred booking channels
Non-preferred booking channels
Sources: CWT Travel Management Institute, CWT Hotel Solutions Group