It’s not just flights – business travelers are easing up on cost when it comes to hotels, too. Rather than try to stretch their dollars until they squeal, road warriors are finally looking for ways they can be a little happier when sleeping in beds that aren’t their own (unless, of course, they’re sharing a bed with … well, you know).
Hotels tend to love business travelers, because they have cash to spend and tend to use it for more than just the room-night. Restaurants, bars and other services – these guys know how to open their wallets!
So, how do they choose? The latest Orbitz for Business / Business Traveler Magazine Quarterly Trend Report offers the five priorities that business travelers want when they decide to offer up their credit card information. While some are mundane, others will shock you:1. Give us a reason to be loyal: business travelers are whores for points, and that means loyalty programs top the list. Rather than save the company some cash, they want to make sure they won’t have to shell out to take the wife, girlfriend or mistress out of town for a few days.
2. Close to work: business travelers are interest in proximity to the reason they’re staying in a hotel. Speaking from experience, nobody wants to wake up in a hotel and then drive half an hour to visit a client. It blows.
3. All in one place: on-site amenities make life easier. That includes wifi, on-site cleaners and an exercise center. Nobody’s going to be happy wandering around town to find this stuff.
4. Size does matter: size of the bill, that is. For business travelers, hotel room rates still make a difference. Cheaper tends to be better.
5. The need to see stars: this one actually surprised me. Business travelers care about a hotel’s star rating. I never looked at it from that perspective but was always interest in choosing a place that didn’t feel third-world (having made a few bad choices along the way).
The least important factor? Well, that’s whether a particular hotel is on a company’s preferred supplier list. And, only a handful said that user reviews were “extremely valuable in their selection process.” As expected, sharing a room is almost totally out of the question.