Some buyers, faced with increasingly complex hotel negotiations and a request-for-proposals process that seems never-ending, are considering negotiating rates outside of the usual season or enacting multiyear agreements with hotel chains. Consultants and hoteliers, however, warned that while such tactics can be effective for buyers in a strong negotiating position, they often can be counterproductive to travel budgets.
"We do have quite a few customers considering off-season negotiations, although it's maybe only 10 percent of clients," said Neysa Silver, director of Carlson Wagonlit Travel's hotel solutions group. "Multiyears also are starting to become more common, with some customers asking for two years. None are longer than that."
Regardless of the timing, buyers, hoteliers and consultants all reported that the timeframe for the hotel RFP process is getting longer. From the initial RFPs to actual negotiations to rate auditing at the beginning of the year, buyers and hoteliers often have no respite from shaping their hotel programs.
"It is an all-year-round process," said Jill Cady, vice president of worldwide sales strategy for InterContinental Hotels Group. "From the time they start considering their hotel program and reviewing the products they've got in place, they start thinking about the RFPs in the forthcoming years in May and June."
During the past few years, more tools and services have become available for travel buyers to administer the request-for-proposals process, Cady said. Each new tool adds nuance to the file specifications for the hundreds of fields of data involved, increasing administrative work for both travel managers and hotels, she said. Add to this the difficult negotiating environment through the persistent hotel seller's market of the past few years. At the same time, buyers face pressure from their companies to contain costs even as travel is growing, which currently is difficult through traditional negotiations.
"The corporate travel manager's job is more difficult than it has ever been," said Bjorn Hanson, principal of PricewaterhouseCoopers' hospitality and leisure group. "They're facing higher costs, and demands for travel are increasing."
Multiyear hotel agreements are one solution to which buyers are turning to ease the workload, similar to what many are doing in car rental negotiations
(BTN, April 2). With the request-for-proposals process so labor-intensive, it's an attractive option to both sides of the negotiating table not to have to enter the process every year, said Priscilla Campbell, practice leader of hotel advisory services for American Express Business Travel.
Norma Rohrbach, vice president of global services sourcing for Citigroup, this summer, at an educational session on rate loading during the National Business Travel Association's annual conference in Boston, said her company recently switched to a multiyear strategy for hotel negotiations. By and large, hotels were receptive to multiyear agreements, she said.
"Our hotel program since 2005 has been a two-year," Rohrbach said. "Surprisingly, even though this is not our market and time to buy, we did get almost 50 percent of our hotels committed to two years at the same rate."
While a buyer with the clout of Citigroup might be able to lock in hotel rates for two years, consultants said most buyers have to take a different approach in multiyear agreements. CWT's Silver said in most cases, buyers will not get hotels to commit to 2009 rates this year.
"Hoteliers, looking at the way their systems work, will only price rates out for a year," Amex's Campbell said. "They'll pad that second year rate, allowing for potential increases."
Because of that, buyers considering multiyear agreements should ensure the ability to go back to those rates the following year if those increases turn out to be overinflated, she said. In fact, Bob Brindley, vice president of the Americas for BCD Travel's Advito consulting division, said the forecast for increased supply means that multiyear agreements might not be the best strategy this year.
"There's going to be a lot of new capacity coming into the market in 2009, which I think bodes well for clients," Advito's Brindley said. "I don't know that I'd want to lock in two-year rates now."
Some buyers also are moving their negotiations out of the usual autumn negotiating season, although this is not a strategy consultants often recommend. Amex's Campbell said some hotels are becoming more receptive, as their volume of RFPs increase, to soften the seasonal crunch. "I've seen a few thinking that if they started in April, they'd have a different kind of attention," IHG's Cady said.
The problem, Cady said, is this ends up putting an administrative burden on hoteliers. Some hoteliers might not be able to accommodate off-season negotiations at all because their internal technology does not support them, Amex's Campbell said.
Bob Peper, CEO of Colville, Wash.-based RFP provider Lodging Logistics, said he's seen a few more clients interested in off-season negotiations, although not anywhere near the number looking into multiyear agreements.
"It conflicts with how the hotels handle their own budgeting and pricing, so those that start early end up paying a price," Peper said. "The buyers' thought is to get more attention, but it doesn't quite work that way, because the hotels are geared up to facilitate this in-season."
Often, the choice to seek hotel agreements outside of the regular negotiation season is utilitarian, CWT's Silver said. Buyers, for example, might be trying to tie negotiations into a company fiscal year that differs from the calendar year, she said.
Even so, Silver also said she sees buyers more frequently wanting to negotiate mid-year to reevaluate their hotel programs. More often, they're bringing in outside sources to assist in examining the data.
"They're looking at whether travel patterns are changing, reviewing on a quarterly or monthly basis, seeing if they should make changes," she said. "They're taking a stronger interest in the data."