Insight
Tips on stopping hotel rate ‘leakage’
BENNY YONOVICH EXAMINES THE HABITS OF CONFERENCE BOOKERS AND OFFERS
A SOLUTION FOR ACHIEVING THE BEST ACCOMMODATION RATES
s I was preparing to attend
the PA Show at London
ExCel in February, my
colleagues and I discussed
the shared habits of businesses when
booking travel arrangements for
international conferences. Thankfully,
we sit on a colossal amount of business
traveller data and were able to answer
our own questions by looking at the
stats from our booking platform
Arbitrip – which I aim to break down
for you into something a little bit more
interesting than numbers in a
spreadsheet.
Timing
One trend that is easy to track is when
companies are typically booking
accommodation around big landmark
conferences versus smaller, more niche
ones.
Hotels near big-name tech
conferences such as ICE in London or
MWC in Barcelona have their rooms
booked up incredibly fast.
For the booker, the good rooms are
blink-and-you-miss-them! We usually
see businesses booking their conference
accommodation about 10 months in
advance. When we compare this habit
to small conferences – for which
accommodation is often booked only
about three days in advance – the
difference is like night and day. Culture
can also play a huge role in when
businesses book their accommodation:
we have found that UK firms tend to
book their conferences, on average,
about 17% earlier than businesses in the
Middle East.
The dedication to booking so far in
advance for big conferences is
unsurprising, especially considering
that some companies spend up to 75% of
their travel budget on booking
conferences alone. That does go to show
just how vital conferences and events
are in the current business landscape.
Efficiency
But for something so important, why is
it often so inefficient? Some companies
do not have a standard booking process,
meaning that bookers are often left to
book accommodation either by email,
telephone or online travel agencies. The
process is not streamlined. One of the
ways in which we sought to fix this
through Arbitrip was to enable
conference or event organisers to load
the rates that they have negotiated with
local hotels into our system (or allow
our team to negotiate and secure deals
for them) – all of which, in turn, will
allow their guests to book directly,
cost-effectively and efficiently.
Benny Yonovich is
CEO and co-founder
of Arbitrip, an online
booking tool for travel
managers and
business travellers.
The company claims
its technologies help
travel managers to
reduce costs by more
than 20%. Clients
include HP, Gett,
E&Y, Fiverr,
Freeformers, Holovis,
Mobileye, AppsFlyer,
Sapiens and Kape.
ISSUE 105
Leakage
It’s important for event organisers to
get the best rates possible for the hotels
that they choose for their conferences.
When they are not using the most
effective channels for this, they are not
achieving the best prices on the market
available to them. This is what we call
‘leakage’ – money being wasted or
‘spilling over’ needlessly.
It might be that the organisers are
not securing the best business rates
possible, or that conference attendees
are seeing artificial price inflations for
rooms near the conference that they
want to attend. This also contributes to
leakage, which will be needlessly
costing the business in the long run.
Overall, it’s a habit of organisers and
travellers that is entirely fixable.
Observing the booking habits that
surround conferences is as important as
it is interesting. By doing this, we can
narrow down where the leakages are
and understand how to limit them. For
Arbitrip, we learn how best to tailor our
bespoke services for each client based on
sector, location and interests.
Understanding these insights will help
event organisers and conference bookers
alike plan for their conferences in the
most effective and efficient ways that
they can.
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
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