BTN's 2019 Corporate Travel Index may look the same as years past, but behind the scenes we've got something very different in play. For 35 years, the Corporate Travel Index has relied on two data partnerships to power its numbers: a mega travel management company to provide corporate booked hotel and car rental rates and a research organization to provide meal and taxi data. In past years, BTN added value by providing hotel tax and fee information and by providing regional analysis. BTN's annual print issue has become an essential industry resource, but with the proliferation and availability of data, the team wanted to experiment with a more sophisticated approach.
What's Changed?
Scope: The most important difference in the numbers in our 2019 Corporate Travel Index is that BTN now has created a proprietary index. Rather than picking up rates from a single TMC partner, we've broadened our data scope. Working with Advito, DVI, HRS and Prime Numbers, BTN now brings a more inclusive rate perspective to the industry for both hotel and car rental. We've also added an important new category for the index: risk. Working with GeoSure, which drills down to neighborhood-level safety ratings, BTN now presents a city-level perspective to raise travel buyers' awareness of traveler safety as they consider strategic partners and budgets.
Detail: BTN also has expanded the detail available in the index, particularly for hotel rates. The index now shows five hotel service categories, compared with three in years past, and shows consistent categories globally, including luxury and economy for those cities for which the hotel data is available. This detail turns up some interesting insights. For example, several cities show high rates at economy hotels, suggesting that corporate travelers are unlikely to book this category except in situations when other inventory is limited and prices are spiking, such as New York and San Francisco.
Frequency: BTN will continue to publish its annual Corporate Travel Index resource issue annually with smart market analysis and year-over-year perspective. However, our Corporate Travel Index Calculator, which debuted last year, will be updated quarterly. This open online resource, which also enables data export for budgeting and reports, allows buyers not only to customize city sets, but also to track market seasonality and other variables affecting their travel program costs.
Enhanced Online Tools: Among the most important improvements to BTN's Corporate Travel Index this year is one borne of a buyer's request. The buyer wanted to understand the range of rates within a single car rental or hotel tier in a given market instead of just an average. While executing that in print proved impractical, BTN enabled the new “rate range” feature within the online tool, providing a high/low perspective on every indexed rate in every service tier. Users simply hover over the rate in the calculator, and a pop-up provides the additional detail with taxes and fees included.
BTN is excited to share this next-generation resource with you and to build a reservoir of rate data over time. We hope it delivers deeper market insights and helps every travel buyer build better corporate travel programs for their companies and their travelers.