HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE A CORPORATE TRAVEL WINNER DURING THE 2012 OLYMPICS

The race already has begun among travel buyers to find reasonable hotel rates around the time of next summer’s Olympics in London. BCD Travel offers 10 tips to help corporate travel managers take the gold in the heated competition for accommodation.

The Olympic Games may be the greatest show on earth, but for travel managers the event is creating the biggest headache on the planet. The search for reasonably priced business travel accommodation in London during the 2012 Summer Games is proving a gruelling one.

The Olympics are scheduled in London from July 27-Aug. 12, a period when the city’s hotels are overstretched even during a normal summer. In July of this year, the U.K. capital hit a record occupancy rate of 92.4 percent, according to TRI Hospitality Consulting. Hospitality industry professionals expect rooms to be scarce from the beginning of July until a week or so after the Games. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (which run from 29 Aug. 29-Sept. 12, 2012) has reserved two-thirds of the city’s entire 53,000-room stock for the event.

Some hotels have responded to the laws of supply and demand in predictable fashion. “We have seen examples of hotels demanding five times their normal rate” says Michelle Hurst, United Kingdom & Ireland Supplier Relations manager for BCD Travel.

Advito, BCD Travel’s consulting arm, gave unequivocal guidance to travel managers in its just-released 2012 Industry Forecast: “Our advice for London during the 2012 Olympics can be summarized in one word: avoid.” But what should you do if you have no choice but to send business travelers to London during those high-demand weeks next summer?  Hurst offers the following tips:

1. Start now
Buyers must take immediate steps to have any chance of helping their travelers next summer.

2. Review your London travel needs
Ask all departments to outline their anticipated demand for travel to London in July and August 2012. Are meetings planned?  How many of their travelers usually visit the city during this period? Will any major corporate projects require trips there?

3. Impose a blackout
Communicate across your company that travelers should — or must — stay away from London during the Games. “A lot of companies are allowing essential travel only,” Hurst says.

4. Find alternative locations
If employees need to meet during the Games, but the location is flexible, direct them to cities elsewhere in the United Kingdom. If they need to be in London for daytime appointments, look for accommodation within an hour’s rail journey, in Oxford or Milton Keynes, for example.

5. Talk to your top hotel suppliers
Companies that must find accommodation for business travelers during the Olympics should work with hotel suppliers with whom they have the strongest relationships. They may be pleasantly surprised, Hurst says. “Some hotels are working very closely with their corporate customers. They understand that while the Olympics are good for the British economy, they are only for a couple of months, whereas their regular customers are here to stay. Those hotels are trying to accommodate their corporate clients’ needs. A couple of hotel brands are even maintaining their corporate rates during the Games.”

6. Ask for allocations
You may be able to persuade your preferred suppliers to block space, setting aside allocations of rooms even if you cannot yet identify the employees who will use them.

7. Consider extended-stay properties
Hurst says some extended-stay brands are imposing only marginal increases on their apartments during the Games. They consider the Olympics an excellent opportunity to persuade potential corporate clients to try their product.

8. Remember the impact on air travel
BCD Travel already is seeing indications that increased demand will tighten flight availability to and from London next summer. “We expect a surge in the price of air travel,” says Hurst. “This is when the route deal will be of great relevance. I don’t see airlines closing off access for corporate customers to J and Y classes, the fare classes to which negotiated discounts are usually applied. The corporate agreement will really make a difference.”

9. Keep the situation under review
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games will release unused room allocations back to hotels beginning in early 2012. If demand is softer than expected, it could change buyers’ calculations. However, it would be risky to take no action now on the assumption that demand will be lower than anticipated.

10. Prepare for potential disruptions
At best, London will be a difficult city to move around in during the Games, owing to the exceptionally high number of visitors and heightened security. If officials issue any security alerts, journey times could stretch even longer. Remind travelers to allow plenty of time between appointments and to create contingency plans for getting around London.