BSI study on business customer trends

Business travellers may not seem like an obvious target for accommodation providers, but, as BSI shows in a recent study, they may be the best bet when it comes to boosting revenue.

BSI, a procurement specialist in corporate accommodation and meetings and event management, gathered evidence of trends emerging in the first half of this year for the hotel sector, which could help accommodation providers better understand how to target the corporate customer.

There are two key trends. The first is the proportion of bookings where the rate includes breakfast, which rose from 21.2% to 53% of all bookings and shows that the ages-old principle of value for money is still very much alive. The second is the growth of billback (a system that tracks costs according to usage), which, has seen a 4% increase in the number of nights booked that used BSI’s own billback payment system.

On the other hand, the average length of stay has remained pretty much the same in the first half of 2009 as compared to 2008, and room rates have continued to fall, with London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow showing the largest fall, with reductions of up to 22%.

From a meetings and events point of view, attendance has gone up by 18%, but the length of these meetings has been reduced by 14%, which shows that although individuals still place a lot of importance on meeting face to face, they need to maximise their productivity while doing so. This could prove to have a negative impact on accommodation providers.

Overall, however, there seems to be rising confidence in the way the economy is going, with corporate customers showing signs of increased activity across all customer markets. People still need to meet and travel, and they are beginning to do more of both once again, which would help to pave the way to the growth in room rates that is predicted for the second quarter of 2010, according to BSI.