Are Your Hotel Perks Actually Delivering Value? 5 Ways to Build a Smarter Hotel Program
For corporate travel programs, a great hotel rate is only part of the equation.
Today’s travel managers are increasingly tasked with balancing cost savings, traveler satisfaction, and program flexibility. That often means negotiating hotel benefits such as complimentary breakfast, Wi-Fi, parking, and flexible cancellation policies.
But there’s an important question every corporate hotel program should be asking:
Are your travelers actually using the benefits you’re paying for?
Recent BCD Travel research highlights the challenge. While 86% of hotel buyers prioritize cost control, 97% want greater cancellation flexibility, and 96% are seeking enhanced amenities and services.
As organizations prepare for future hotel sourcing, it may be time to rethink how hotel program value is measured. Instead of focusing solely on negotiated discounts and included amenities, companies can use traveler behavior and program data to better understand what is truly delivering value.
1. Measure What Travelers Actually Use in Your Corporate Hotel Program
A long list of negotiated amenities may look impressive on paper, but an amenity only creates meaningful value when travelers use it.
Look at your hotel program data alongside traveler feedback to identify which benefits influence booking decisions and improve the traveler experience.
Consider questions such as:
- Are travelers using complimentary breakfast?
- Does free parking matter in your most frequently traveled markets?
- How often do travelers need flexible cancellation?
- Are certain amenities influencing travelers to select preferred properties?
Understanding consumed value versus negotiated value can help your organization focus its hotel spend where it has the greatest impact.
2. Take a Closer Look at Complimentary Breakfast
Complimentary breakfast is one of the most common benefits included in negotiated hotel programs—but it isn’t necessarily valuable for every traveler or every market.
BCD Travel’s analysis highlights that breakfast-exclusive negotiated rates can sometimes be lower than comparable breakfast-inclusive rates. That means organizations should consider whether travelers are actually using the benefit before paying a higher rate to include it.
Instead of automatically requiring breakfast in every negotiated rate, consider traveler preferences, usage patterns, differences between inclusive and exclusive rates, and whether breakfast actually influences hotel selection.
A more targeted approach can help control costs without sacrificing the traveler experience.
3. Match Cancellation Flexibility to Traveler Behavior
Flexibility remains extremely important to today’s business travelers, but the most flexible option isn’t always necessary.
Analysis referenced by BCD Travel of more than 500,000 transactions found that only a small percentage of hotel cancellations occurred on the day of arrival, with most happening several days before check-in.
Look at when your own travelers typically cancel reservations. If most cancellations occur several days before arrival, your organization may not need to pay a premium for same-day cancellation across every preferred property.
The goal isn’t to eliminate flexibility. It’s to provide the right level of flexibility based on actual traveler needs.
4. Look Beyond the Negotiated Rate
A negotiated rate isn’t automatically the best available value.
Hotel market conditions fluctuate throughout the year, which means a rate negotiated months earlier may not always be competitive with current market pricing.
Regularly benchmarking hotel performance can uncover opportunities to:
- Renegotiate rates
- Shift volume toward higher-performing properties
- Adjust preferred hotel lists
- Increase preferred-property adoption
- Identify additional savings opportunities
Looking at rates, amenities, traveler behavior, and market conditions together provides a much clearer picture of overall hotel program performance.
5. Define What “Value” Means for Your Organization
There isn’t one universal definition of a successful hotel program.
For one company, success may mean achieving the lowest possible average nightly rate. For another, it may mean increasing traveler satisfaction, improving policy compliance, supporting sustainability goals, or providing greater flexibility.
The important thing is to define those priorities—and then measure your hotel strategy against them.
Turn Hotel Data Into Smarter Decisions
The strongest corporate hotel programs don’t simply negotiate more perks. They understand which benefits matter, which ones travelers use, and where the organization is getting measurable return from its hotel spend.
That’s where having the right travel management partner can make a difference.
Adelman Travel, a BCD company, helps organizations turn travel program data into actionable insights—identifying opportunities to optimize hotel spend while balancing savings, flexibility, and the traveler experience. Learn more about Adelman’s approach to hotel program optimization with Hotel IQ.
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This article was inspired by BCD Travel’s latest guidance on evaluating the true value of hotel program benefits—from amenity utilization and cancellation flexibility to benchmarking and traveler behavior.
Read the original BCD Travel guide: How to Turn Hotel Perks into Measurable Program Value.
Ready to Get More From Your Hotel Program?
Your hotel strategy should deliver more than negotiated discounts. Adelman Travel can help you uncover opportunities to reduce costs, strengthen your program, and deliver a better experience for your travelers.
Connect with Adelman Travel to start the conversation.