What to Look for in a Corporate Lodging Solution: Today's Must-Have Features & Tools for Travel Managers

We’re a nation that likes to travel. Almost 1.3 million business trips are taken in the US every single day!

For the regular business travelers that make up this number and their operations managers, a great corporate lodging solution is worth its weight in gold.

Pick the right one and it will save you time, money, and a giant heap of stress.

But what features should you be looking for when it comes to choosing the right corporate lodging solution for you and your business?

Here we take a look at all the essential features you should expect from a provider. But first…

What is a corporate lodging solution?

A corporate lodging solution could be a software, platform, or website. Whatever the format, the solution simplifies the process of booking and managing business accommodation. A corporate lodging solution can offer tools like:

• Trends and analytics so you can optimize your lodging spend
• Travel policies to keep your travelers within budget while also giving them the freedom to make their own reservations
• Insights into your most traveled locations
• And more…

However big or small your company, however many miles you travel as a team, corporate lodging solutions were built to help you to spend less time and money arranging business trips.

But, they’re not all created equal.

What to look for in a corporate lodging solution?

Good corporate lodging solutions solve a number of different problems for their users.

Here are some of the key features you should look out for when choosing which corporate lodging solution to use.

Simplifies the booking process

Searching for the right hotels for you or your team members takes time. A corporate lodging solution should drastically reduce the hours you spend on this task.

It should have an easy-to-use search function, plus a great filter and sort tools.

That way you can search for corporate lodging based upon location, price, or amenities — whatever is most important to you.

The best corporate lodging solutions also offer a wide selection of hotels in a variety of different locations. Finding the right corporate lodging is so much easier when you have a number of options to choose from, whatever your destination.

To top it all off, you should be able to book your corporate lodging at the click of a button. No need to speak to a customer service representative or send a booking request.

Helps you manage bookings

A lot of corporate lodging solutions are pretty good at helping you search for hotels. But many fall down when it comes to managing your bookings.

When you’re managing multiple room reservations for team members, things can get pretty complicated.

The right corporate lodging solution will make it easy for you to change or even cancel reservations when you need to. They will also provide tools so you can track your bookings, offering both an overview and more specific trip data, all in the same place.

And, for those times when you’d rather speak to a real person, they’ll have a dedicated customer service team ready and waiting to take your call.

Whether you need to change reservation dates or want to organize a long-term stay for a whole team of people, the best corporate lodging solutions will have experts on hand to help.

Offers travel policy tools

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Want to give your employees the ability to book their own travel (within parameters)? Then you need a corporate lodging solution that supports multiple logins.

Your solution should also give you the tools you need to implement your travel policy and impose travel restrictions.

Keen to put a cap on hotel expenses? The best corporate lodging solutions will do this automatically once you’ve keyed in your preferences.

Saves you money

As well as saving time, a corporate lodging solution should save your company money.

They work with hotels to get the very best prices so you don’t have to. As a result, you get access to discounted room rates as standard.

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that many corporate lodging solutions often come at a price. Many charge membership, booking, or cancellation fees. Some even charge fees for non-usage. You need to bear these costs in mind when considering the savings you make on hotel rooms.

Alternatively, you can choose an option like Hotel Engine. Our corporate lodging platform is completely free to use, without any hidden costs, annual fees or contracts!

Provides tools for analysis and reporting

A travel dashboard helps you keep track of all your company’s hotel bookings. And it’s something you should expect of any comprehensive corporate lodging solution.

A dashboard lets you see all of your travel data in one place. It gives you an overview of reservations, hotel expenses, and travel trends.

Analysis and reporting features allow you to see the bigger picture and plan travel more effectively. Whilst billing tools allow you to pay invoices in a monthly lump sum. With all that data at your fingertips, you save time and find ways to cut travel costs too.

And a few perks wouldn’t hurt, right?

When searching corporate lodging solutions, don’t forget to check out their rewards programs.

The best offer their own points and perks, while also allowing you to collect loyalty points from the hotel chains you and your travelers stay with.

Ready to meet the corporate lodging solution that does all this and more?

Hotel Engine is a corporate lodging solution that ticks all of these boxes.

Our members can search from over 700,000 hotels across the US, Canada, and beyond at great rates, up to 60% off. And we have a 24/7 US-based member support team should you need to make any modifications to your bookings, or have any questions about your reservations!

When it comes to managing bookings, you can do it all through the easy-to-use Hotel Engine dashboard. It’s here that you’ll find all of our great analysis and reporting tools, too.

The best part? The Hotel Engine platform is completely free for businesses to use. So our users only pay for their rooms— no added fees, no minimums, and no contracts! Our best-in-industry reward program also lets members earn HE Rewards points with every booking, and add their own hotel-specific loyalty programs for double the savings!

Ready for headache-free hotel booking? Sign up today to find out if our corporate lodging solution is the right fit for you. A member of our team will help to get your account up and running so you can start saving on business lodging today!

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