Travel buyers frequently measure the strength of their hotel program by examining their attachment rate, which is the percent of room nights made in conjunction with an air and/or car booking. If the attachment rate is lower than 70 percent, this most likely indicates that travelers are looking and booking outside of the program. The Acendas Travel Corporate Hotel program helps our clients increase hotel attachment and mitigate policy non-compliance, unmanaged spend, and security risks.
Acendas recently assisted its client, ARKRAY USA, to implement a successful hotel attachment rate initiative via our Corporate Hotel program. Our RateWatch tool allows the innovative medical device company to use improved automation to search for reduced room rates at the traveler’s booked hotel once the initial reservation occurs.
In September 2015, ARKRAY USA modified its travel policy to require all hotel bookings to be made through Acendas/Concur Travel. Since this major policy change, ARKRAY USA’s hotel attachment rate increased from 40 percent to 97 percent and its average nightly rate decreased 8 percent. ARKRAY USA worked with Acendas to educate travelers on the advantages of booking hotels as part of the travel program, which helped to facilitate this positive outcome.
In addition, ARKRAY USA benefited from our Mission Control proactive, traveler technology assistance with 75 instances during the first quarter of 2017. Acendas Mission Control is our crisis management process to proactively track and assist clients during events that impact traveler safety. ARKRAY USA has achieved cost savings and duty of care just by implementing hotel reservations via Acendas/Concur Travel.
“Using Acendas, in conjunction with Concur Travel, allows our employees to spend more time helping clinicians improve the lives of their patients and less time worrying about travel reservations. ARKRAY’s partnership with Acendas ensures the safety of our travelers through their Duty of Care program, while also providing convenience in travel booking, streamlining expense management, and allowing greater control over travel spend,” said Craig Brosseau, Vice President of Finance for ARKRAY USA.
Based on Acendas’ analysis, clients with a high attachment rate typically have an average nightly rate that is 10 percent less than those with a low attachment rate. Additionally, there are several methods in which corporations can benefit from existing market environment, to increase pricing leverage.
Recently, Advito provided the following stats on how to gain control in your hotel program management:
- With 50 percent of hotel bookings being made outside corporate travel programs, travel managers are unable to locate travelers in these locations and cannot maintain duty of care. Acendas Travel’s Mission Control is our crisis management process to proactively track and assist clients during events that impact traveler safety.
- Only 29 percent of travelers reserve a hotel at the same time as air, which causes more out-of-policy bookings. If an Acendas traveler makes an air reservation without booking a hotel room and does not provide a reason for not reserving the room, our Hotel Check-in Email reminder ensures your travelers are prompted to book a hotel. Additionally, Acendas offers clients reporting on reason codes for why a hotel was not booked to assist with identifying repeat offenders.
- Finally, corporations are spending unnecessarily on their hotel programs with 15-30% of preferred properties that are not loaded properly when first audited. Acendas’ audit process ensures client’s preferred rates are loaded correctly and we work directly with the hotels for any discrepancies.
Want to know more about how Acendas RateWatch can assist your corporate program and reduce hotel costs?? Download a flyer about the service and ask your Acendas Travel account manager for details.
