The Customer

An international commercial and industrial printing company.

The Situation

The list of preferred hotels for the printing company grew to a point where the volume of each hotel was being diluted. Fewer and fewer hotels were negotiating a preferred rate and the company’s hotel expenses rose. Additionally, managing so many hotel agreements program increased costs and reduced their volume leverage to negotiate lower rates at many hotels.

The Solution

Fox World Travel consulted with the printing company and recommended to consolidate their hotel spend to fewer locations, focusing their volume to negotiate deeper discounts rather than diluting it across too many properties.

By working with the company’s travel team and their regional support personnel, Fox successfully reduced the number of hotels in their program and saved the company money by reducing the average nightly hotel cost. Fox led the entire hotel RFP process from selection to negotiations to finalizing accepted hotels.

The Process

Fox World Travel‘s proven hotel RFP project management drove the process. Also, Fox provided an internal company communication plan with a hotel directory to help socialize the properties in their program. Steps included:

• A market analysis, including a Fox World Travel data analysis of preferred properties and annualized room night volume for all company destinations
• Creation of a formal company invitation to bid cover letter, RFP questionnaire and hotel bid list
• Fox held regular meetings with the company to discuss received bids and consult on negotiation and acceptance decisions
• Management of biasing preferred hotels and rate loading process within Fox’s reservation system and online booking tool
• Reporting on projected savings based on room night volume and finalized rates
• Ongoing reporting on hotel usage to continually drive traveler compliance to select preferred hotels

The Discoveries

By focusing more volume on the top three properties in the company’s primary markets, the average daily rate (ADR) was reduced by two percent in market conditions where ADR had increased by 1.8 percent nationally.  The company successfully reduced their overall hotel costs as a result of partnering with Fox on a hotel negotiation and consolidation strategy.