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Few options for midmarket to thwart rising hotel, car rates.

Article Excerpt
Travel managers at small and midmarket companies last year began to find car rental firms and hotel suppliers more challenging to bargain with, following three years of negotiating receptivity.

Many industry insiders expect increased travel levels and rate expansion from the rental car and hotel industries to stay steady throughout the year and beyond, and the landscape will continue to pose challenges as buyers--particularly firms with U.S. booked air volumes below $12 million--head into the 2006 negotiating season.

"Especially at small to midmarket companies that don't have the leverage, the increases are going to hit them hard," said Carol Salcito, president of Norwalk, Conn.-based Management Alternatives. "Unfortunately, they're going to be relying on the best deal they can get on the Internet even more heavily than they have in the past. It's going to be a challenge for them and the travel management companies to provide the small and midmarket clients a good deal."

Perhaps no segment of the travel industry in the past year has experienced such a robust recovery as hotel companies, which used healthy occupancy, higher room rates and corresponding revenues to vault back...

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