Corporate dining network Dinova is growing its restaurant
base and exploring technology to increase traveler use of its network and broaden
its appeal to managed travel programs.
As corporate travel demand generally has rebounded during the
past few years, corporate dining spending also has been on the rise, said Dinova
president Vic Macchio. Among a static group of Dinova clients, spending on
dining increased about 5 percent in 2013 compared with 2012, and Macchio
projected another increase between 3 percent and 5 percent this year, much of
that stemming from restaurant price increases.
In addition to higher meal prices, managing dining budgets
has been a challenge for buyers due to fragmentation in the restaurant space.
Some buyers who have attempted negotiations with restaurants found it fruitless.
"We've garnered tremendous attraction among the
corporate clients out there, particularly the Business Travel News Corporate Travel 100 crowd,"
Macchio claimed. "Dining is about the third-largest spending category—all
indications say it's higher than car rental spend—so this is an opportunity of
great interest to travel buyers."
Launched in 2009, Dinova acts as a third-party negotiator
with restaurants for rebates based on corporate volume and compliance. Rebate
structures vary by client.
While "corporate dining" usually brings to mind
high-end steakhouses and wine-and-dine eateries with white tablecloths, only
about 20 percent falls into that category, Macchio said. As such, the 10,000
restaurants currently in Dinova's network cover "the full gamut of
restaurants required to accommodate corporate spending," he said. That
includes fine-dining restaurants, midscale casual dining spots including the
Outback Steakhouse and Bonefish Grill, such grab-and-go establishments as Au
Bon Pain and Boston Market and fast-food chains like Pizza Hut and Jamba Juice.
Beyond chain agreements, Dinova also tries to work with
clients to add specific individual restaurants.
Lynnora Ruth, corporate travel manager for North America at
Harman International Industries, estimated that restaurants makes up 10 percent
to 15 percent of her company's travel spending. Harman this year is
implementing a Dinova program as part of a targeted focus on secondary spend
categories. Ruth said she is using a phased approach, first centering on the
area around Harman's Northridge, Calif., site, and later this year expanding to
Harman's Farmington Hills, Mich., and Stamford, Conn., locations.
As Ruth implements the program, she will work in a given
area to get restaurants that Harman employees already uses frequently into the Dinova
network while also pushing nearby restaurants already participating, she said.
"We're doing the first quarter in Northridge, to get
our feet wet, make mistakes and learn a few things," Ruth said. "We
have seven campuses at Farmington Hills, with lots of engineers coming and going,
so it's huge from the perspective of both internal meetings and meals on
premises. After that, will reassess and see how we're going to approach the
remaining locations in the United States."
To maximize rebates, Harman within its GetThere booking tool
is inserting a scrolling marquee with a link to Dinova's website. Ruth also is putting
information into the expense reporting tool and overhauled intranet travel
site, and also plans email notifications.
For an extra push, she's planning a lunch—catered by a
Dinova network restaurant—for executive assistants. "If we get the buy-in
from the executive assistants, they'll have influence with their managers and
engineers," Ruth said.
Dinova is exploring other ways to increase compliance. Dinova
currently has a web app and is in the final stages of introducing a mobile
search app for the iPhone and Android platforms. It also intends eventually to
integrate with corporate booking tools and other travel technology components,
Macchio said. Through such integration, a traveler arriving in Dallas, for
example, could be greeted with a text message offering a welcome and a list of in-network
restaurants they might consider, he explained.
Ruth said the mobile route is "where we want to go"
at Harman, adding that she also planned to use LinkedIn and other social media
outlets to promote the program.
Other clients are asking Dinova to help improve policy
enforcement, Macchio said. For example, it could indicate with an icon that higher-level
restaurants are acceptable only if an employee is dining with a client or
prospect, and instruct them to drop to a lower tier of restaurants when meals
are for internal meeting purposes.
Other projects in the works for this year include network
restaurant mapping, dollar-sign designations and reviews of network restaurants
and the ability to include special offers from network restaurants, Macchio
said.
For now, Dinova's restaurant network is limited to the
United States, though it plans to develop a global network, Macchio said. While
U.S. chains with restaurants elsewhere would "be the first logical choice"
for overseas expansion, he said that "we need to put our own resources out
in those markets to build up a locally relevant, international network of
restaurants."
Many of Dinova's clients are global companies with inbound
travelers from all over the world, so the network already offers a way to
direct travelers who might not be familiar to a market to trusted restaurants.
As Harman regularly hosts employees coming from China, India and, following its
2012 acquisition of entertainment lighting company Martin Professional, Denmark,
Ruth said the network would be a helpful resource.
"Perhaps it's a location they've never been to, and
they don't know what would be a good restaurant to go to," she said. "Familiarity
is important to international travelers, and they look to us in the travel
department to be their resource for that information."