Corporate Hospitality Category Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Corporate Hospitality market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Business Travel Accommodation market. Consumer markets are underpinned with apps and websites that offer a very friendly experience for bookings and cancellations - an experience that has not yet crossed over to the corporate segments. As executives grow more accustomed to self-planning and self-booking in their personal lives, they expect similar convenience in their business lives as well. In the absence of right tools and technologies, a lot of friction can be generated between employees looking for convenience and travel departments looking to enforce rules and policies.

In recent years, the market has witnessed a significant number of strategic collaborations, mergers, and acquisitions. Such developments have enabled the suppliers to expand their portfolio of offerings, geographic presence, and value chain. Moreover, suppliers have also gained access to new technologies and resources.

The availability of advanced technologies has prompted travel and event service suppliers to heavily invest in them to improve efficiencies and customer experience. However, most have learnt that technology alone is not a replacement for the human touch when it comes to customer service. As a result, suppliers are spending on both counts - technology and customer service staff. Till the time a formula for perfect balance between the two is discovered, buyers should expect to bear some of this increased OPEX of suppliers.

As a result, category managers need to closely monitor the Corporate Hospitality procurement trends and identify changes required in their procurement environment for the category.

Corporate Hospitality procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Corporate Hospitality procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers should seek collaboration with suppliers to identify demand patterns within the organization. This includes data sets for the time of booking, duration, and preference for time and days. Using such analysis, buyers can build a comprehensive corporate guideline and ensure that a specific set of service providers are used for services. Moreover, these data sets can be used to identify cost-saving opportunities.

Suppliers often charge substantial fees for cancelation and rebooking. Buyers should negotiate for low prices on these aspects to realize direct cost-savings.

Buyers prefer to engage with service providers that provide one-stop solutions such as multi-modal travel bookings, accommodation assistance, events listings, ticketing and event promotions.

Corporate Hospitality procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Corporate Hospitality procurement. Some examples include: