Clare Murphy, director of specialist travel management consultancy Bouda, on how to negotiate your hotel room needs
- Decide if you are going to manage your hotel programme or ask your travel service provider to manage it on your behalf.
- If the travel service provider is to manage the programme, is there a fee? And check that the hotel recommendations include properties you specifically require.
- If you plan to manage the programme yourself, establish whether your travel service provider will be charging fees, for example for loading the rates on to the GDS on your behalf.
- Use historic data to formulate your hotel programme, but also speak to key departments about forthcoming projects which you may need to take into account.
- Canvas travellers’ views on the current hotel programme and establish what ‘extras’ might be important to them.
- Understand your booking profile and advance purchase habits.
- Use publicly-available industry research – from STR Global, for example – to gain an understanding of general developments in your key markets.
- Produce a template in Word or Excel of the key information you want to collect – room type, rate, cancellation periods and the like – so hotels can respond in the same format.
- Tell hoteliers how many room-nights they can expect, and indicate the kind of room rates you are seeking.
- Press for an ‘on the day’ cancellation period.
- Check advance booking patterns to see whether last room availability (LRA) is important to you, and be aware that some hotels will charge a premium for it.
- If your travellers are likely to eat and drink at the hotel, request a discount on food and beverage spend.
- Support your preferred hotels. Proactively manage policy compliance to ensure they benefit from the business you promised.
- Check whether your travel service provider charges a fee on nett rates. If commission is payable, establish precisely how much can you expect to receive – your return may only be a fraction of the negotiated commission.
Extracted from Bob Papworth's feature on supplier negotiations. To read it in full click here
Bouda.co.uk