News x TMCs
CWT AIMS TO REDUCE TRAVEL STRESS
CARLSON WAGONLIT TRAVEL (CWT) has launched a tool that aims to help companies reduce the impact of stress on their business travellers and make them
more productive. The leading TMC has unveiled its CWT Travel Stress Index, which looks at the potential stress caused to a traveller through up to 22 activities associated with a business trip, from making the initial booking to getting their expenses paid
HOTELS
by the employer on their return to the office. CWT has spent the last 18 months building the new tool, which uses data from 15
million transactions to produce an individual travel stress index rating out of 100 for each company, which can be benchmarked across similar firms and competitors within their sector. The index will estimate how much time, productivity and money is lost through the different types
of stress endured while on a business trip. It also takes into account demographic factors such as the gender, age, nationality and salary of the firm’s travellers. This latest
development comes six months after CWT released its initial report into the main triggers for stress on business trips, ranging from lost bags, to the lack of an internet connection, to having to fly economy on long- haul flights. n See Databank, p18
Richard Solomons
Holiday Inn went through a US$1
billion relaunch, and you lost a lot of hotels in the process – was that tough? Very tough. At the time of the relaunch in 2005-6 it was a
successful brand, and was continuing to grow, but we looked ahead and said, for it to stay relevant, there is a lot of product that’s not going to make the journey. It was the single biggest refresh of a brand in the industry, and you had to make physical changes and put every single member of staff through the training programme.
You are are looking to sell some of your
Marriott chief: ‘Strong year coming’
10
MARRIOTT PRESIDENT AND CEO, Arne Sorenson, predicts a 4-7 per cent average increase in RevPar (revenue per available room) during 2013, after the global hotel group saw a 6-7 per cent rise last year. “This suggests that the economic recovery continues,” he told an ITB press conference in Berlin. “We see another strong year coming.” But he said there was less bullishness in Europe, with lower
expectations of growth than in other parts of the world. Sorenson said that 2012 had been a record year for reaching agreements for new properties, with 8-9 per cent growth (representing 57,000 rooms), which was better than the pre- recession peak of 2007. Beneath this global figure, he said that regional differences included fewer new rooms in the US than in 2007 and “significantly more” in Latin America and Asia.
properties – how do you convince owners to invest? It’s how the markets assign capital most efficiently. We take a
share of revenues, generally, in a franchise agreement, and we share the rewards with owners. So if you own a hotel, you’re getting all the capital appreciation and all the profits out of the assets. We wouldn’t have signed 356 hotels in 2012 if owners didn’t like it.
Do you think business travellers understand what IHG’s Crowne Plaza brand represents? I don’t think about it as three-star or five-star – it’s need, occasion and price point. Crowne Plaza has
IN CONVERSATION… Richard Solomons, IHG
Tom Otley talks to Richard Solomons, chief executive of Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), about relaunches, branding and PR stunts by his competitors.
been confused in the UK and US, perhaps, but in Asia it is the fastest growing upper upscale. We define the core customer as a striver, where success in business defines success in life.
Starwood located its head office to Dubai
for a month in March, and did it with China a year or so ago. Have you considered that? I’m not into PR stunts. We are a global business and have been for a very long time – we run local and domestic businesses already. We have over 300 executives in our Shanghai office, most of who are domestic Chinese. Relocating the head office? It makes me smile.
How do you feel about distribution,
online travel agencies and the different ways that your hotels can be booked? The best way for people to book our hotels is directly with us. Best for
them, because the quality of the information is as good as it can be and they have absolute confidence that the booking is going to be here; best for our owners because it’s much cheaper, from a return perspective. Our approach with travel agents is, if it’s incremental business we wouldn’t otherwise have had, then we are happy having it.
The loyalty programme is a
land-grab for members at the moment. What are your views on that? For some of these brands it’s been an arms race to sign
people up. Our focus is genuine loyalty across the brand family, and one of the key tools is our loyalty programme – we make sure we target our spend on loyal customers.
MAY/JUNE 2013
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