Choice Hotels has enhanced its group booking program for hotel rooms and is expanding the number of rooms allowed to be booked without a request for proposal, Choice VP of global sales Chad Fletcher told BTN. The company also now allows virtual cards as a group payment option and is adding the ability for groups to use corporate IDs to capture negotiated rates, he said.
The limit of guest rooms that can be booked without an RFP "used to be 25, now it's 40," Fletcher said. "Also, we've allowed the travel manager and planners to use corporate IDs to get discounts and negotiated rates through the program. It allows you to use that discount with real live inventory."
Choice introduced virtual pay for corporate transient clients in 2018, but the demand to offer it for group bookings increased since the pandemic began, Fletcher said. "It's a touchless experience, and it's set up with centralized billing back the corporation," he said.
With the shortened booking window—useful particularly for disaster response groups, Fletcher said—users can view hotel availability and book in real time, even after the hotel's configured cut-off date.
The direct group booking still is for guest rooms only and does not include meeting rooms, which still require an RFP. "The trend we see is 68 percent of leads coming in for group bookings are room-only requests," Fletcher said. "There is still a tremendous demand with corporations and the general marketplace for sleeping rooms only. However, continued expansion is certainly a consideration for the future, as we continue to evaluate feedback and reviews from our meeting planners."