How A Hotel Specific Booking Tool Saves Time And Your Bottom Line
When it comes to booking travel, businesses have many options these days. It may be tempting to go with an all-inclusive option that also offers the ability to book flights and rental cars. However, using a hotel-specific tool to book corporate lodging can generally net you better deals, better service and more functionality that can be helpful for your business.
Let’s dig in a little deeper on the differences of using a specialized hotel booking tool built for business as compared to a standard online travel agency.
Table of Contents
1. The Top Benefits Of Using An LPN For Corporate Travel Management
2. Case Studies
The Top Benefits Of Using An LPN For Corporate Travel Management
Business travel management involves much more than simply booking corporate travel arrangements.
Travel administrators and their teams must also manage travel policy compliance, expense management and reconciliation, all while delivering a pleasant experience for your traveling employees.
Using an online travel agency leaves all of these tasks up to your in-house team. On the flip side, using a travel management company takes much of the effort off of your plate — but the cost of this solution may outweigh the benefits it offers.
Your third option is Engine, a hotel-specific corporate travel booking platform that combines the advantages of having your own travel agent with the convenience of an online booking tool. It fills that lodging gap for companies who travel too much to be using an online travel agency, but who aren’t big enough to afford a travel management company.
Here are a few of the benefits you can expect with using a lodging performance network like Engine:
1. Save Time
When you book through Engine, you’ll access plenty of tools that are designed to help you save time.
Always on the go?
You can use your smartphone to book trips through our mobile app. You don’t have to wait until you get to the office to update your room capacity or see availability in real-time at your favorite hotels.
Speaking of favorites, you can use filters to find that perfect hotel for your next planned business trip. For example, exclude hotels that don’t offer free Wi-Fi or shuttles for your employees, or hone in on those with the highest rating.
Once you’ve found your hotel and made your bookings, you won’t have to worry about spreading the word. You can have the itineraries of the upcoming trip emailed directly to the traveling employees and managers with just a few clicks.
You can also see the locations and itineraries of everyone on your team who is traveling, right from your dashboard.
2. Save Money
Lodging performance networks like Engine offer a mutually beneficial deal between business travelers and the hotels that want their business. That means that hotels offer low rates to the network’s members — up to 60% off, in the case of Engine.
While you can save money with every booking on Engine, you can also take advantage of tools that will uncover additional savings.
Has your company implemented a corporate travel policy? It’s a great way to keep trips on budget — but then you have to make sure employees are actually complying with those policies. When your team books on Engine, you can set travel policies to automatically filter search results to only show rooms that are compliant with the nightly cap.
You can also access all the important analytics you need to track your company’s travel spending and find out what’s eating up the biggest portion of your budget.
Best of all, unlike travel management companies, Engine’s corporate travel program is free to join and use. There are no contracts or minimums, so you can use the platform as much or as little as you’d like.
3. More Options
Do your employees prefer a certain hotel chain or boutique hotel? Are you looking for properties in urban centers, suburbs or rural areas?
Whatever you’re looking for, you can book it on Engine. We partner with over 700,000 properties with international bookings in over 185 countries.
We offer plenty of options for both domestic and global business travel.
4. Build Loyalty
The ability to rack up rewards for personal travel is a major perk for employees who spend a lot of time on the road. You can increase employee satisfaction by allowing them to rack up on rewards when they book hotels. Engine works with over 15 major hotel loyalty programs so that members can accrue those points on eligible bookings.
Earn double rewards by providing the employees with hotel loyalty points while the company earns HE Rewards, which you can use to save money on future bookings.
Save hotels your employees love and easily book again for your next trip, ensuring that you meet your duty of care.
5. Helpful Staff
Engine’s business travel program includes access to our Member Support team, who offer customer care to the standards of a travel agency and then some.
Any trip has the potential for hiccups along the way. That’s why support is available 24/7, ready to help with tasks such as:
- Canceling or modifying reservations
- Credit card issues
- Room changes
- Problems with hotels
Case Studies
Want to see how other businesses have benefited from the switch to Engine? Check out these case studies from real members.
Medical Solutions
Medical Solutions is a leader in providing healthcare workers to medical facilities across the nation.
They came to Engine to help find a better way to provide lodging for their traveling workers because it had become a very time-consuming task.
Not only did they save 1,577 hours of time securing lodging, they also saved a whopping $219,000 in one year.
This healthcare workforce solution continues to save 30 minutes per booking with Engine’s help.
Read more: Hotels For Healthcare Travelers — Traveling Nurses, Locum Tenens, Allied Professionals
SafeRide
SafeRide provides non-emergency medical transportation to its clients. Sometimes, these medical services are far enough that it requires an overnight stay for the driver.
Engine helped SafeRide find lodging for these appointments, and in the first eight months saved them over $191,000.
What could your company do with that kind of extra capital?
AMN Healthcare
Another medical staffing organization that joined Engine to save money is AMN Healthcare. This company specializes in placing traveling nurses, therapists and doctors in three- to nine-month assignments across the country.
You can imagine the lodging needs for these medical professionals could be costly and difficult to secure.
Engine stepped in and saved them $186,000 in six months.
Industrial Kiln & Dryer Group
With a staff of six managing the transportation needs of its 70+ crew members, Industrial Kiln & Dryer Group struggled to keep up.
They were maxing out their company credit cards and spending hours on the phone with hotels dealing with employee issues and billing mistakes.
That’s when they joined Engine in 2018. Since then, they’ve saved $123,000 in lodging expenses.
Just as importantly, they’ve been able to simplify their company lodging process, reducing the daily workload and stress their travel managers face.
Combined Transport
Combined Transport is a logistics company that services much of North America. As you can imagine, most of their drivers don’t make it home for bedtime each night.
Drivers often sleep in their cabs, but this practice comes with risks and discomfort — and it’s not always possible, like when trucks are being serviced.
Engine saved them time, headaches and $111,000 since 2019.
A more unexpected benefit? Their driver retention rate increased significantly — a pleasant surprise for the business.
Read more: 7+ Truck Friendly Hotel Chains
Conclusion
An online hotel booking tool can save time and money, both of which are precious commodities for corporations.
Sign up for Engine for free today to start exploring the over 700,000 hotel properties we’re proud to partner with.