A Travel Technology Company

March 2011

Technology for the Global Travel Industry

on the panel todayChris PouneyFounder & Director, Business TravelSevernside Consulting Ltd

Gary MaygerHead of Travel & Corporate SolutionsRateGain IT Solutions

Chris Pouney is founder of Severnside Consulting that offers bespoke business travel management support to mid and large size corporations.Having started his career at American Express, he joined first the Travel Company, then financial giant Citigroup to lead travel globally, winning numerous internal awards for his innovative approach to service delivery.Working with major global companies in industries as diverse as Construction to Perfumery specialising in major travel transformation projects, delivering significant savings, and service improvements. Chris is a frequent contributor to industry publications and a speaker at industry events

RateGain, one of the most awarded travel and hospitality technology companies, offers innovative web-based solutions to top Online Travel Agents, Airlines, Wholesalers and Hotels across 65 countries. Our solutions are in the areas of Competitive Price Intelligence , Online Channel Management, Guest Satisfaction Audit, Reputation Management and Social Media Marketing. Established in 2004, RateGain is headquartered in Noida, India with offices in the US, Thailand, Spain, Dubai and the UK. For further information visit us at www.rategain.com

The challengesProgram managers & procurement

Using intelligence Optimize the hotel programEffective RFP’sBenchmarking for a successful hotel program today and tomorrow

todays sessionoptimizing the hotel program

Challenges faced by hotel program managers & procurement

Confidential

Are you running a healthy hotel program ?- Hotel spend accounts for an ave of 39% your total travel budget

- Ave 50% of hotels booked are out of policy - Deficiency in rates being loaded into the booking channels

- Hoteliers predicting year on year rate growth- Availability of hotel data is “scattered”

Confidential

addressing the challenges – you and your teammanaging an effective hotel program

Convergence of corporate and leisure buying

– Empowered internal customersCompliance & control = risk

– Leakage of a non managed program– Distribution channels compromised ?– Rate loading and availability

Transparency– Lack of rate visibility– Dynamic pricing

Efficient information– Fast actionable decision making – do you have

it?– Supplier performance – measure and improve

Investment– ROI or simply a spend

Confidential

How rate intelligence can help corporations optimize their hotel spend

Right pieces in the right place

rate intelligencepre and post booking

Proactive search– Pattern of search identifying in

advance if your negotiated rate/room type is available via your booking channels

– Identify in advance violations of rates available on brand or websites with proactive messaging for corrective action

Rate optimization– Dynamic pricing– Proactively identify savings by

comparing booked rates vs. cheaper rates that maybe available via the web channel

How to make the Hotel Program RFP Process more effective

pre RFPempowering the RFP process

Increased competitor set– Market based intelligence

aligned to different criteria with historical AND future rates with business traveller reviews and ratings

Negotiation intelligence– insight to available future

BAR rates (365 days plus) – all hotels from brand sites and OTA/wholesaler sites compared to alternative properties.

Booking intelligence– Insight to past and future

booking data for intelligence for key items such as occupancy and availability trends.

Benchmarking for the successful hotel program

benchmarkingcomponents to think about

Rate parity– Managing parity across the

distribution channels. Ensuring you can catch this early whilst running your program

Rate availability – Monitor proactively using patterns

of search to identify violations that can be managed

Rate effectiveness– Is my rate as competitive as it

could be and am I taking advantage of BAR – saving/loss

The right product– Do I have the right product in my

program that consistently delivers

Open forum

A final thought & thank you for your participation

www.rategain.com

www.severnsideconsulting.com