Room for Savings: Optimizing Hotel Spend - Carlson

Conclusion
Hotel spend will be increasingly managed by companies as they seek further savings from their travel
program. Best performers will build on a keen understanding of the hotel market and traveler
behavior, bringing improvements in key areas such as data consolidation, travel policy, the preferred
hotel program, negotiations, traveler compliance and performance tracking.
Realizing they can spend nearly as much on hotels as on air transportation may encourage companies
to allocate greater resources to hotel sourcing and expect a higher return on their hotel program. They
will be helped by a buyer’s market in many major cities, as a weak economy lowers occupancy and
encourages hoteliers to bargain hard for corporate business.
Going forward, companies can expect significantly better conditions in terms of rates and
complementary amenities. Moreover, travel managers will find it easier to secure sufficient room
availability for their travelers in some high-demand markets. At the same time, companies should
continue to ask hoteliers to help make travel more sustainable, and work with security experts to
ensure the hotels they choose provide the right level of security for travelers.
Corporate buyers can take full advantage of these opportunities to create more value by working
with specialists in hotel sourcing and program optimization. As this report has shown, optimizing
hotel spend offers many companies plenty of room for savings.
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