GUEST BLOG: Staying power - ​how your hotel policy can help win the battle for top recruits

It’s a tough job market for employers. If you want to attract the top recruits, you’ll have to fight for them. When taking new roles, many employees want benefits that offer better work-life balance, like more paid time off and flexible work arrangements.

For those who travel frequently, a good travel policy is essential to work-life balance and can be a key factor when determining whether to stay in a job or accept a new one. In fact, 59% of North American business travellers and 66% of Latin American travellers told GBTA that a company's travel policy is an important factor when deciding to take a job with a new employer.

What can you do to make sure your hotel policy appeals to recruits?

1. Offer convenient locations and properties

Time and time again, business travellers say convenience is their number one priority. It’s not an unreasonable request. Who doesn’t want an extra 30 minutes of prep time or sleep before heading out to a meeting?

Yet, if you only rely on GDS content, your hotel program may not offer properties at all of the locations your travellers visit. Offering properties from third-party hotel content sources like Booking.com and Expedia Partner Services can provide travellers with access to more locations and accommodation types (independent hotels, apartments, etc.) that are not available in the GDS.

2. Be realistic about rates

Beyond convenience, travellers want to stay somewhere clean, comfortable and safe. Quality matters. While price does not equate to quality, there are significant differences in average room night rates by location. When setting city caps, make sure you know average rates by city and how much rates are expected to grow. Carlson Wagonlit's  2019 Global Travel Forecast can help you determine rate increases by region. Also, consider the type or class of property your travellers expect to stay at when setting rate caps.

3. Help travellers save time

Scrolling through pages of hotel property results trying to decide which hotel is the right fit – not so much fun. Neither is searching through several sites. Partner with a travel management company (TMC) that offers personalised search results. 

4. Offer loyalty perks

Travellers care so much about loyalty points that they’ll risk their personal safety to earn them. Literally. 3 in 10 business travellers surveyed by CWT said they would sacrifice safety for loyalty points and incentives. The good news is that travellers can book rates with loyalty points through RoomIt. The even better news is that they can earn additional hotel loyalty points through Loyalty Booster, driving in-channel bookings to your preferred suppliers.

5. Make Bleisure easier

More companies are allowing travellers to add a holiday to the end of their work trips. However, most travellers book their trips through consumer sites. Make sure travellers are clear if they can take advantage of your preferred rates or TMC when booking personal extensions and how to pay for those accommodations so they can book their full trip all at once. 

Blog author: Scott Hyden, Chief Experience Officer, RoomIt by CWT, who will be exhibiting at Business Travel Show on 20-21 February at Olympia London. Secure your free ticket now at www.businesstravelshow.com.

GUEST BLOG: TMCs of the future

With an influx of household AI assistants from Amazon and Google, and news of a billionaire sending a car into space, expectations of technology are rocketing ahead.  

But how do such advances translate to TMCs? And more importantly, what will clients expect in the future?

Consumerisation

Major consumer-facing brands are obsessed with providing the best user experience and easy-to-use interfaces. Traditional B2B booking tools haven’t necessarily kept pace with these changes. However, a more consumer look and feel to booking tools can provide significant dividends to businesses.

A personalised, intuitive user experience for individuals, combined with a customisable offer for organisations, is the most effective weapon when it comes to fighting leakage. With a new generation who’ve enjoyed quick and easy online shopping all their lives entering the workplace, TMCs who can satisfy those requirements will be best placed to help their customers more easily manage their business travel.

Direct connect

For years, the industry has used the GDS for airline bookings and customers have paid fees for the ‘privilege’. Direct connects have provided a much-needed revolution in distribution.

Travellers can now book fee-free with several major airlines and have all the options they need at their fingertips - everything from adding luggage after booking to increased legroom, or even the ability to strip the fare down to the bare minimum, with no extras, to cut costs.

The next generation of TMCs must use direct connect as standard to meet customer demand.

Engaged and motivated staff

Paying reservation agents commission or incentives on bookings doesn’t give customers the service they deserve.

The role of a TMC is to save a business money on its travel, so account managers should be focused on their customers’ interests, rather than promoting options based on whether or not they are receiving an incentive from a particular provider.

Furthermore, reservations agents are much more engaged and motivated if they can demonstrate absolute integrity, without worrying about their personal finances.

Customers want quality advice, support and savings tailored to their needs and by knowing their decisions don’t impact directly on their agent, they can be confident they are making the right choice every time.

The future is now

We are convinced these steps are the key to the next generation of TMCs. At Click Travel, we have incorporated all three and are seeing the benefits on a daily basis.

This post was written by Jill Palmer, CEO of Click Travel. Jill will be participating in the Business Travel Show conference session ‘TMCs – are we paying them too little, or too much, and with the right model?’ in the Pillar Hall at 11.30 on 21 February.

Click Travel will be exhibiting on stand B650 with its next-generation travel management platform, travel.cloud