Profiles In Travel Management: Driving Hotels To Offer Wi-Fi

Company: Intel
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
U.S.-booked Air Volume: $75 million
Worldwide Air Volume: $120 million
Global T&E Spend: $274 million

Intel has leveraged its position as a leading technology provider to reshape the sourcing techniques and goals of its corporate travel program. By tapping into Intel's unique market position, global corporate travel manager Sy Price has worked with the company's hotel partners to enhance tech-savvy traveler productivity by driving wireless Internet adoption at preferred properties and promoting Intel's global Wi-Fi services.

Over the past few years, said Price, Intel's procurement-driven travel department, which rolls up into the company's purchasing and materials organization, has explored the use of electronic procurement tools and fully implemented online auctions across its global hotel program.

"Most recently, we utilized it in our air program and e-auctions for car leasing or fleet programs in the United States, Europe, China, India and Malaysia." said Price. "In the case of our travel management company, we didn't use those initiatives. In the case of our online booking tool, we didn't either. It's not that you couldn't use them in those areas, it's how you apply the tools that are there. There are some things that are a better fit for Internet negotiations or e-auctions than others, and it's just getting to that apples-to-apples comparison."

Upon transitioning to a new global travel management company in 2003, Price said Intel embarked on a unique program aimed at driving wireless Internet adoption among preferred hotel suppliers.

"We have a pretty structured global hotel program with over 400 hotels across 50 markets," said Price. "When we started that initiative about 18 months ago, about 9 percent of those preferred hotels or room nights were hotels that had wireless capabilities. By the end of 2004, we were at 85 percent."

In 2005, Price hopes to drive Wi-Fi adoption to 90 percent among key suppliers. "It's a key part of our selection," he said. "We would ask in our selection criteria that the hotels have wireless capabilities. If they don't, and they're still a key preferred hotel for Intel, then we'd work closely with our sales and marketing organization, our information technology group, as well as the right people at a specific hotel or chain to go and implement wireless solutions to ensure that, when our travelers are at that hotel, they can utilize wireless capabilities in their rooms or lobbies."

Though wireless adoption is a focus of Intel's corporate mission, Price said the company does not require hotel partners to implement Intel solutions in order to be a part of the corporate hotel program.

Still, admitted Price, "It is kind of a three-way win for Intel corporate travel, the hotel, and then also for our travelers. We've had a very positive response from the hotels that we're selecting that have wireless capabilities because our employees like that capability from a productivity perspective."

Though Intel corporate travel's Wi-Fi initiative may be, in some respects, self-interested, the benefits drawn from such a program can be felt industrywide.

"Intel has been so behind Wi-Fi, and now they're also starting to get behind Wi-Max, which is the next broadband type of wireless that's going to be coming out over the next couple of years and embedding that in their chips," said Travel Tech Consulting president Norm Rose. "If everybody who works at Intel has a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, any place they go should have Wi-Fi connectivity. Is that to say it's a high priority at every other non-connected party? Intel's got some reasons for doing that beyond just having productivity in mind. You probably could uncover voice-over-IP activity with Cisco saying the same thing. That's what they're selling."

Despite Intel's ulterior motives for its Wi-Fi-enabling initiative, said Rose, "Anytime that you can provide connectivity to a business traveler, you're going to add value. Any corporate travel manager worth his salary should be looking at that as a priority for hotel selection and possibly down the road in airplanes as well."