Corporations saving on hotel rooms in volatile 2017 hotel market

Corporations taking advantage of current market conditions, including a slower third quarter at many hotel chains, can cash in on a favorable pricing leverage, according to an analysis by hotel-rate-auditing technology TRIPBAM™ and global travel management company BCD Travel. The opportunity comes amid the annual hotel rate negotiation season and with an increased focus on lodging spend by many CFOs.

With hotels becoming increasingly sophisticated in revenue management, and online travel agencies like booking.com and Expedia pursuing aggressive pricing strategies, corporate travel programs have opportunities to keep hotel costs down. BCD and TRIPBAM found that despite hotel-rate volatility, corporate travel buyers can save on hotels by focusing on three key areas:

• Providing access to great hotel content through their corporate booking options
• Managing hotel spend dynamically throughout the year
• Rebooking hotel rooms when rates fall

"The current hotel pricing environment provides great opportunity for savings for corporations that creatively seek them out," said April Bridgeman, senior vice president of strategic marketing at BCD Travel. "Rebooking hotel rooms when rates fall is a critical component. We're seeing a growing number of success stories among clients using our Hotel Price Assurance offering, powered by TRIPBAM™."

BCD Travel's Hotel Price Assurance helps companies take advantage of fluctuating hotel rates to secure savings. The service uses newly enhanced automation to continue shopping for lower hotel rates after travelers have booked their rooms.

Tales of Corporate Hotel Savings

Abercrombie & Fitch , the prominent clothing retailer, uses Hotel Price Assurance to shop and secure lower hotel rates at the traveler's booked hotel. The company saves, on average, more than $60 per night when savings are found, and the program successfully re-books travelers at the lower rate more than 70 percent of the time.

"The incremental hotel savings we're seeing makes a notable impact on my program's overall performance," said David Buchholz, travel and expense manager for Abercrombie & Fitch. "The ROI on this service makes it a no-brainer."

American Cancer Society, a non-profit, tightly manages its travel budget due to its due diligence of donor dollars. The Hotel Price Assurance service has driven an increasing rate of hotel savings for ACS since its launch in May. ACS worked with BCD on an innovative campaign to educate travelers and travel arrangers on the benefits of the TRIPBAM-powered service, helping drive these positive results.

"When we've secured a lower rate, we've seen average nightly savings triple over the course of the past four months," said Terri Clay, vice president of nationwide meeting and travel management for ACS. "This type of creative savings is vital to our mission, helping us see maximum value for our lodging spend."

TRIPBAM's unique feature set – built to handle the complexity of managed travel hotel programs – offers corporations new tools that not only lower hotel costs but spur increased usage of preferred properties and chains. TRIPBAM's patent-pending "cluster" shopping processes let BCD clients seek preferred, in-program hotel alternatives when non-preferred hotels are booked by the traveler.

About BCD Travel

BCD Travel helps companies make the most of what they spend on travel. For travelers, this means keeping them safe and productive, and equipping them to make good choices on the road. For travel and procurement managers, it means advising them on how to grow the value of their travel program. In short, we help our clients travel smart and achieve more. We make this happen in more than 100 countries with more than 12,000 creative, committed and experienced people. And it's how we maintain an industry-leading client-retention rate of 97%, with 2015 sales of US$23.8 billion. For more information, visit www.bcdtravel.com.

About BCD Group

BCD Group is a market leader in the travel industry. The privately owned company was founded in 1975 by John Fentener van Vlissingen and consists of BCD Travel (global corporate travel management), Travix (online travel: CheapTickets, Vliegwinkel, BudgetAir, Flugladen and Vayama), Park 'N Fly (off-airport parking) and joint ventures Parkmobile International (mobile parking applications) and AERTrade International (consolidating and fulfillment). BCD Group employs over 13,000 people and operates in 100+ countries with total sales of US$25.4 billion, including US$10 billion partner sales. For more information, visit www.bcdgroup.com

About TRIPBAM™

Dallas-based TRIPBAM is a new hotel shopping service used by corporations, hotels, travel agencies and travelers. TRIPBAM uses patent-pending "cluster" shopping processes to find savings on more than 60 percent of hotel groups searched, with average savings of more than $100 per trip. Launched in April 2013, TRIPBAM earned GBTA's Spotlight on Transformation award and recognition from leading corporate travel publications in the United Kingdom and the United States. For more information about the service, go to www.tripbam.com.

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