Shane Hodges
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide this month appointed Shane Hodges as managing director of global corporate sales, overseeing a team that handles the hotel company's largest 19 corporate accounts. Hodges has been with Starwood for more than 17 years, primarily in Europe and Asia/Pacific, and most recently as head of sales and marketing for the company's properties in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. After spending his first few weeks on the job familiarizing himself with the North American hotel market and issues specific to corporate transient travel, Hodges spoke to Business Travel Newslodging editor Michael B. Baker about his goals and strategy in working with large corporate accounts.
What are the top priorities for you and your team right now?
The number-one priority is to meet as many of the customers as I can in the first weeks. I'm in the middle of doing that and getting familiar with the North American corporate travel market. From a Starwood perspective, we really have two significant roles. There is the day-to-day functionality, the global programs that need to work with business travelers, and we need to make sure hotels are in programs and that global hotel programs are delivering rates and products. Then, we have the strategic role. At the top, we're experiencing some pretty significant trends in the industry, and my job is to listen to the customer and see what trends are affecting those individual travelers and to respond globally to those trends.
What are some of those trends?
Some of the trends in the face of social media and online marketing and communication ... those are the areas we're looking at. Our customers are looking at different ways of booking corporate travel and in particular their business meetings, and that's looking heavily at new online systems. We try to engage all elements of Starwood to look into that and see how we can make doing business easier for our customers in that area. We're seeing real trends in sustainability programs with customers, and we need to be looking at how we're working with that. The other thing is the speed that our customers are globally growing their footprints. We need to match the customer's need whenever they're doing business in Bangalore, and to be opening new Aloft hotels or Four Points by Sheratons there, and we're moving very quickly to make sure we're able to match that need of the customer with those hotels. We have a pipeline in China that's almost doubling our footprint in the next few years. South America also is growing quite quickly. Often our hotels are opening hot, meaning we've been working with our customers so well that when they open, they're opening full.
With rates forecast to move upward this year, do you expect any corporate clients to try to start negotiations early?
I'm old enough to remember that there really did used to be an RFP season. It used to be July, August, September, and you probably got it done. For various reasons, we're seeing customers come out a little early, customers who come out and do a couple of rounds and customers who might only do one round but do it in August. We have some folks with whom we're still talking about hotels in January, February and March, and we have processes in place to meet their needs through the new year until that's done. It does seem a little more organic and continuous over the time. This goes back a little bit to growth, which is becoming so substantial and so quick that sometimes that one-off process isn't enough, and they need to be looking at hotels as they expand out of that traditional program.
Do you expect to see more adoption of dynamic pricing models this year?
I'm not sure. It's so unique to a particular customer. I know there have been lots of conversations around dynamic pricing, and combinations of both it and some of those other traditional methods we're all familiar with, with block-space programs and long-stay programs and project programs. Each account is going to be looking at what they need in particular locations globally and see how they can work their purchasing process, and then operating that travel program. It can be a little different in North America than in Asia/Pacific, so we need to spend the time with the customer and see what works for them. There isn't one off-the-shelf model that anyone can take down and say that it works for corporate travel globally for all accounts.
Do you foresee any clients moving away from traditional RFPs altogether?
Whether it's the business travel buyer per se or whether they're working hand in hand with procurement folks, any process that is as complex and global as purchasing travel, you're always going to look at ways you can be more effective and efficient, and that's the right thing to do. That's part of our role in the regions. We have a structure placed against these major customers where they have extremely senior executives whose role is to be plugging into every significant department of Starwood to make sure if there's any area we can make business easier, then these senior executives are able to go in and talk to those elements of Starwood to make them easier. The article originally was published in Business Travel News.