New BT Booking Cost to Take Effect in 2017
Today’s sales landscape is changing for our B2B customers, and we have seen an increase in the number of accounts that are interested in centralized Business Transient (BT) pricing. This change is partially driven by companies consolidating their travel programs and the increased focus on duty-of-care for their traveling associates. Marriott’s BT pricing process has evolved to best respond to these customer needs, and optimizes resources through centralization, standardization, and process automation.
Marriott’s U.S. Area Sales organization plays a major role in BT pricing, from managing account relationships, soliciting and negotiating bids, and working through the rebidding process with hotels and customers. Even after pricing has been agreed upon, the U.S. Area Sales account executive, in partnership with the hotel, maintains an active relationship with the customer to follow up on questions.
For BT pricing, The U.S. Area Sales’ customer-driven model supports all Marriott-branded hotels — those that participate in the Area Sales program as well as “non-participating hotels” that are included in Marriott’s BT pricing process.
- Participating hotels are those hotels that fund Marriott’s U.S. Area Sales organization to lead the overall sales effort.
- Non-participating hotels include non-U.S. Marriott-managed hotels, The Ritz-Carlton hotels globally, Marriott-managed and franchised hotels in Canada, and a majority of U.S. franchised hotels that have their own sales efforts. These hotels have traditionally not paid for this BT sales support.
With this in mind, beginning in January 2017, we will be making a change to this model. Hotels that do not participate in Marriott’s U.S. Area Sales Organization and opt to be included in Marriott’s Area Sales BT pricing effort will be charged $2.75 per stayed-and-paid contracted BT room night.
This BT booking cost will be limited to 2,500 room nights (a maximum of $6,875) per hotel, per account annually. Based on recent historical production figures, on average, it is estimated that select-service and extended-stay hotels will pay a total of $700 per year and full-service hotels will pay $2,400 per year. Please note that pricing season for 2017 will begin in June/July of this year.
The cost will only apply to U.S. Area Sales deployed accounts (not deployed via the Global Sales organization) that are tracked via all rate codes searchable by a customer that have been centrally priced on, and ultimately accepted in, MarRFP. Please note that each hotel will have the option to accept or decline an account bid based on the business needs of the hotel.
As part of this effort, and as an added value to hotels, we will provide hotel- and portfolio-level reporting with BT booking cost details.
This cost structure will effectively resource the Area Sales organization to meet growing demand and sell to our customers across the entire Marriott portfolio, regardless of Marriott-managed, franchised, participating, or non-participating.
To learn more about the Sales organization, please view this message from Marriott’s Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Steve Heitzner.
