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Cos. changing hotel negotiating timing.

Article Excerpt
More than six months past the conventional end of the annual hotel negotiating season, many corporate travel managers are continuing to make hotel deals. Some have come up with innovative ways to drive further savings, including negotiating multi-year agreements to lock in lower rates, negotiating a percentage deal off consortia rates as opposed to a flat rate and moving bookings from traditional hotels to less expensive corporate apartments.

Internal corporate cost pressures and hospitality providers who have become more hospitable in hopes of increasing market-share are the mothers of these inventions. A more fluid model--in which buyers now keep weighing their negotiating options, and act accordingly, throughout the year--has emerged in place of the established January-December pattern.

"For most of our hotel program, we already had traded down from full service to midprice hotels, so when we decided to trade down further in certain markets, corporate apartments made a lot of sense," said Kevin Maguire, travel manager of Tokyo Electron...

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