Cvent releases 2021 Travel Managers Report

Event technology company Cvent has released its 2021 Travel Managers Report. The report was completed by independent research company Censuswide, and was based on more than 500 survey responses from corporate travel managers (CTMs) in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Netherlands. The report found that the hospitality industry will need to adapt and evolve its practices to support the changing travel and event planning requirements of CTMs. CTMs across the UK and Europe stated that for future sourcing of venues, stringent health and safety protocols (including Covid-19 tests at hotels), larger rooms better equipped for working and meetings, and more outdoor space will be key considerations. As such, hoteliers looking to capitalise on the RFP opportunities in 2021 and 2022 will need to focus on these areas in their sales and marketing efforts, and negotiations. Hoteliers will also need to adapt pre-pandemic corporate programme strategies and offer more flexible pricing models, as more than half of CTMs in the UK and Europe (58%) stated that they will request dual or dynamic rates during their negotiations for 2022 bookings. Diana Marin Acosta, SVP of sales and distribution at NH Hotel Group, said: “At NH Hotel Groups we foresaw the need and opportunity to be able to adjust our pricing model more quickly, in order to react to market demand and hotel industry trend behaviours. For that reason, we pioneered the implementation of an ‘open pricing’ revenue model strategy, which we called Open Corporate Rates, providing NH with a competitive advantage. “NH Hotel Group’s Open Corporate Rate enables us to offer clients the best price in market by adjusting rates according to demand and occupancy levels. Together with Cvent we are able to provide our client’s the ability to introduce hybrid travel programmes and dual rate loading (fix rate + open corporate rate) via the Cvent Transient RFP Platform.” The full report can be viewed here.