Businesses are throwing away money on hotels because of poor travel management programmes, a survey has shown.
Corporate hotel and conference management organisation BSI said half of hotel bookings do not guarantee the best rate, 20% have no policy to govern spending while most bookings are made outside of the company’s official travel policy.
The study also revealed that less than 25% of firms know how much is spent on hotel bookings each year while one in four hasn’t reviewed hotel expenditure in the last two years.
BSI said by implementing a best rate guarantee, firms can save 15% of total expenditure with a further 10% to 35% saved by sticking to company policy and capping hotel rates.
BSI group managing director Charles Cockell said: “We have noticed many cultural changes in the trends of hotel bookers and this piece of research confirms just what we suspected – many are not managing hotel expenditure effectively.
“Airlines have been under scrutiny for many years with huge cost savings made on air travel as a result. However, as annual hotel expenditure can often exceed that of air travel, it makes sense to shift the focus.”
