This is the second in a series of posts taking a broad view of the value you can unlock when booking hotels. Part 2: Added value for the procurement function Hotels are a spend category that has gone unmanaged and uncontrolled for many years. This has been the case for a number of reasons, but the main one has simply been that with digitalisation, it seemed very difficult for procurement officers to squeeze any additional value out of hotels. What is the point of negotiating corporate deals when anyone can go online and get a better deal on hotel booking sites?

There’s an age-old discussion in the business travel industry about whether it’s best to book hotels via online sites or by going directly to the hotels themselves. The conversations are (far too) often focused on one aspect: price. Every CFO or Travel Booker knows it’s their duty to the company to get the best price on a room, but they might not understand that price alone isn’t the best indicator of whether a deal is good or not. Being able to get value for the time spent booking business travel as well as having control over the process are two aspects that are just as integral to a spending strategy. It’s after this understanding that the argument for going to online search aggregators or direct to the hotels gets a third challenger: dedicated business hotel booking platforms like Roomex.