New AirPlus Survey Suggests that Corporate Travel Buyers Expect an Increase in Hotel Rates, Volumes, and Budgets While Preparing for 2012 Negotiations

AirPlus International, a leading global provider of corporate travel payment and analysis solutions, releases July’s The Wire…from AirPlus titled: Hotel Rate Negotiations for 2012. An increase in total room nights purchased for 2012 is expected by nearly half (47 percent) of the corporate travel buyers surveyed and another 44 percent expect their room nights to remain the same; with only 9 percent expecting a decrease. Similarly, almost half (49 percent) expect their negotiated rates with hotel suppliers to increase from one to five percent and 48 percent expect their company’s hotel budget to also increase. For more details, including a complimentary PDF of the full survey results, please visit the AirPlus Community.

“Two years ago we conducted a similar survey regarding 2010 hotel negotiations and at that time, 34 percent planned to go for the lowest rates, even if it meant switching suppliers. But today’s results show more loyalty to suppliers, with roughly only one quarter (26 percent) willing to switch on price alone,” said Richard Crum, President and CEO of AirPlus International, Inc. “With hotel negotiation season upon us, our customers find great value in our MIS tool, the AirPlus Information Manager, which provides travel managers with a complete overview of their travel data and can prove quite useful in supplier negotiations.”

The Wire…from AirPlus is a monthly pulse report for the business travel industry on timely and relevant topics. Results of this edition are based on a survey of 101 corporate travel buyers in North America and Europe from June 3 to July 8, 2011.

AirPlus International is a leading business travel payment solution with a payment suite of central bill accounts, corporate cards and online management tools that are used by over 35,000 customers worldwide. AirPlus is travel agency neutral, the leading issuer of UATP worldwide and the preferred partner of various airlines such as Air China, British Airways, Continental Airlines, Luxair, Lufthansa German Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, TAP Portugal and Singapore Airlines. For more information, please visit AirPlus.com, contribute to our community at AirPlus Community, follow us via Twitter and LinkedIn, and like us via Facebook. Press may contact Rana Walker, Marketing and Communications at rwalker@airplus.com or +1 (703) 373-0947.