Industrial technology company AMETEK manages travel for approximately 22,500 employees in 34 countries. When AMETEK began working with BCD Travel and Advito, roughly half of hotel bookings were made outside the managed program, particularly in Europe and Asia Pacific.
Through Stay by BCD Travel, BCD’s corporate lodging and hotel program management solution, the teams looked beyond negotiated rates to address the wider adoption challenge. They used program data to expand hotel content, improve the online booking experience and develop communications around traveler pain points. Together, these efforts made it easier for travelers to understand their options and the value of booking within AMETEK’s program.
The results were notable. AMETEK said hotel leakage fell from around 50% at the start of the initiative to nearly 20% over its most recent rolling 12 months. BCD also reported a 19% year-over-year increase in room nights.
AMETEK Senior Manager for Travel Amy Hunke, Advito Senior Marketing Consultant Abby Westbrook and BCD Senior Manager of Hotel Program Strategy Michael Coleman shared the work behind the results during a BTN Group webinar. Here are five practical lessons travel managers can apply to strengthen hotel program adoption.
5 ways to encourage program adoption among your business travelers
1. Start with the behavior you want to change.
Don’t start by deciding you need another email, banner or video. Start with the program challenge. AMETEK and Advito began with a discovery workshop to identify program priorities and traveler pain points. One problem was confusion around the different hotel rates travelers encountered in Concur. The team responded with a “Which Rate is Which?” infographic designed to simplify those choices and guide travelers toward the appropriate rates.
Advito’s Westbrook summarized the approach simply: Start with the behavior you want to influence, not the communication you want to create.
For travel managers, that means using program data and traveler feedback to get specific about the problem:
- Are travelers booking hotels outside the program?
- Are they confused by rate choices?
- Are they failing to add a hotel when they book air?
The takeaway: Once you identify where the desired behavior is breaking down, you can decide what intervention makes sense.
2. Meet travelers where they’re making decisions.
Having the right information available doesn’t necessarily mean travelers will find or use it. AMETEK had already tried many of the familiar approaches: emails, intranet articles, and other communications. The shift was toward reaching travelers at multiple points in their journey, including when they were actively making booking decisions.
The team used targeted, branded Concur banners and company notes, alongside a short video available through the company’s Global Travel SharePoint site. The video proved particularly effective, giving travelers a more engaging way to understand the program and the value of booking within it.
The goal wasn’t to repeat the same message everywhere, but to put relevant guidance where it would be most useful. AMETEK was also mindful of overcommunication. Hunke noted that the team limited how often it reshared information so messages wouldn’t lose their effectiveness.
The takeaway: Reach your travelers at key points in the hotel journey with timely guidance that addresses known pain points.
3. Explain the “why,” not just the rule.
AMETEK learned something important about its travelers: they wanted to understand the reasoning behind the program. That insight helped shape the second year of its engagement strategy. The team introduced video and expanded their reach in Concur with branded company notes in formats travelers could easily consume. A short video used in new-employee onboarding remained available afterward for reminders and FAQs and received positive feedback from travelers around the world. But the lesson wasn’t that video worked. It was that travelers were more receptive when they understood why the desired behavior mattered.
The takeaway: Audit one of your most important hotel communications. If it explains only what travelers should do, make sure the reason behind the request is just as clear.
4. Give travelers useful choices within the program.
AMETEK wanted to protect the preferred negotiated rates it had worked hard to secure while addressing situations in which those rates weren’t available or didn’t meet a traveler’s needs. BCD supported additional hotel content, including dynamic rates within agreed parameters, while working with AMETEK to ensure those options supported rather than conflicted with its existing sourcing strategy. Preferred negotiated rates remained the first choice presented to travelers, followed by other options when necessary.
Hunke also emphasized an important distinction: AMETEK controls what its travelers see. BCD and Advito support the strategy, rather than determining it for the client.
The takeaway: Make the preferred choice clear and give travelers an obvious alternative when it isn’t available.
5. Connect engagement metrics to hotel performance.
Views and clicks can tell you whether travelers are paying attention. They don’t tell you, on their own, whether your hotel program is improving.
Advito reported more than 634,000 views and 1,100 clicks across AMETEK’s Concur banners. One hotel attachment pop-up generated more than 635 clicks and a 2.26% click-through rate. But Advito and BCD looked beyond those engagement measures. The teams considered them alongside wider hotel program KPIs to understand whether booking behaviors were moving in the intended direction and where the hotel strategy needed to evolve.
The broader results provide context. Along with the reduction in leakage, BCD also reported a 19% year-over-year increase in room nights. The numbers shouldn’t be presented as the result of any single banner, video or communication. They reflect a wider strategy spanning content, traveler engagement, booking experience, data and ongoing hotel program optimization.
The takeaway: Pair engagement metrics with wider hotel program KPIs to understand whether communications are reaching travelers and influencing the intended booking behaviors.
Don’t treat optimization as a one-time project.
The AMETEK case makes a strong argument for thinking about hotel optimization as a continuous cycle rather than a project with an end date.
Stay by BCD takes the same approach: understand the data, build the right hotel program, measure the outcomes, optimize and reinvest. AMETEK’s engagement strategy followed a similar progression. The team established a foundation, watched how travelers responded and expanded into new formats and channels based on what it learned.
For travel managers, that makes the starting point straightforward:
- Find the problem.
- Understand the behavior.
- Craft a strategy that combines hotel program optimization with traveler engagement.
- Measure what changes.
- Build on what works.
See what innovative ways we offer to drive hotel savings with sophisticated spend management and traveler engagement tactics.
Get in touch