CASE STUDY
How a leading technology firm transformed its global hotel program
Key Highlights
This leading global technology firm, with operations spanning 18 countries and an annual travel expenditure of $60 million, had partnered successfully with FCM in the United States for several years. They decided to globalize their travel program into Europe and Asia with three key goals:
- Improve compliance across global operations
- Gain control over global spending
- Drive travel costs down
Challenge: travel policy and compliance
Despite the firm’s global footprint, its hotel program was heavily US-centric, lacking in global data and local country engagement. Existing travel policies were not strong or consistent enough to require hotel bookings through the managed program.
FCM tracked the firm’s data and analyzed traveller behavior, discovering that bookings were being made with only a 50% global hotel attachment rate. Without stronger policy controls, the firm struggled with negotiating rates in its key global markets.
Travel policy inconsistencies were not just limited to hotel compliance. Risk management was also an uphill battle without complete data, and it was challenging for the firm to deliver a positive traveller experience.
Solution: behavioral insights and local buy-in
FCM worked with the technology firm to build a comprehensive strategy, gathering behavioral data and insights from each country. All countries were then asked for input and feedback to further globalize the program and ensure that each local market had a real stake in its success.
Once this buy-in was achieved, new language in the firm’s travel policy was able to mandate the booking of hotels through the global hotel program with FCM whenever possible.
Results: greater savings achieved
The coordinated efforts and new policy mandate to book all hotels through FCM led to major improvements for the firm:
- 100 new hotels in key markets were added to the global hotel program
- Hotel attachment rate increased from 50% to 80% (remaining non-compliant bookings due to direct customer rates or internal meeting spend)
- Overall hotel volume increased by $USD 8 million globally (from $13 million to $21 million)
- Discount percentage increased by 3% (from 14% average discount to 17%)
- The firm saved an additional $USD 1.6 million through the FCM global program (from $1.8 million to $3.4 million)
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