Here’s a statistic sure to jolt any travel manager into action: Your company probably isn’t getting the savings it deserves on more than a quarter of its hotel bookings.
“Capitalizing on hotel savings is more important than ever with rates and fees hitting record highs,” said Advito’s Marwan Batrouni. “But our analysis finds that, on average, 26% of negotiated hotel rates are either incorrectly loaded or not loaded at all in the GDS at the start of the calendar year.”
That’s why the beginning of the year is the right time to do a GDS audit. It’s the best way to make sure you’re getting the hotel savings you negotiated for with vigor last fall.
“Schedule your first GDS audit as soon as possible, preferably by the end of January,” advised Batrouni, senior director and practice area leader for Advito, the consulting arm of BCD Travel. “Schedule another audit in March or April to check progress on the errors you found at the beginning of the year. Then do a third one in June or July to make sure you have the data you need going into fall hotel negotiations.”
Want to dig even deeper to confirm your hotel savings? Batrouni offers additional advice on audits:
- Conduct rate availability audits every month or every other month—beginning in February—to ensure the rates you negotiated are actually available to your business travelers.
- Conduct best available rate (BAR) audits on a monthly basis to ensure that the suppliers using advanced yield management and other fluctuating pricing techniques are not offering lower rates than those you negotiated.
- Conduct rate parity audits every month or every other month to ensure online consumer sites are not offering rates below your negotiated rates.
- Do online booking tool audits to ensure rates are loaded properly and that preferred hotels get prime positioning.
“If any of these audits reveal a problem, address it immediately,” Batrouni said. “That’s the best way to ensure you maximize savings for the rest of the year.”
Get a view into where hotel rates are headed in 2016 by downloading Advito’s 2016 Industry Forecast infographic update. And ask your account manager what Advito and BCD Travel can do to ensure your hotel program is optimized for savings and traveler satisfaction.
