Hotel programme compliance management

Barry Wheeler, HRG Business Manager

A multinational pharmaceutical company booking 500,000 room nights per year calculated it could save $10 million a year by reducing the average paid per night by $20.

Using valuable insight gained from benchmarking, HRG also noticed that the client’s rate were higher than peer clients, there was the potential for savings by introducing more competition in cities and travellers tended to book more expensive hotels.

In partnership with the client, HRG implemented a number of changes to the hotel program aimed at increasing compliance from a figure of 60% and delivering estimated savings of $8 million.

The strategy was to introduce stronger competition in cities, negotiate rates through a global RFP, drive travellers to use the client’s approved hotels as well as more cost effective mid-market business hotels using a revised booking process and put an average hotel rate per city target in place.

Alongside the changes, a strategy was put in place to communicate the new process from the global office down through country travel managers and to the travellers.

HRG and the client worked closely together from the planning stage with our consulting team instrumental in demonstrating potential savings. In addition, alongside the client’s travel manager we visited HRG’s online support team in Halifax as well as the service centre in Montreal to create a good understanding of the processes and decisions.

We also worked with a third-party online solution provider to display the preferred rates and flag out of policy items.

The hotel program went live in April 2011 and in addition to the immediate financial benefit the changes have also meant visibility on where travellers are and greatly improve reporting and analysis of data.

Since the project went live, we have held weekly follow up meetings and reviews to continue to improve the process.

All prices quoted in US dollars.
Prices quoted correct time of activity.