CWT has added a central payment tool for hotel bookings in China via a partnership with AirPlus, the travel management company announced.
With the tool, CWT can capture company payment information when a traveler books a hotel either through the myCWT website or mobile app or with a CWT counselor. Travelers can check in and out of the hotel without having to provide a credit card, and the company will receive a monthly statement with all bookings on an itemized invoice, according to CWT.
Albert Zhong, CWT general manager for China, said the central payment tool was especially needed for customers in China, where corporate card and virtual card acceptance is low compared with other business travel markets.
"Business travelers here usually first pay for travel expenses out of their own pocket and then submit tax invoices for all these expenses to get reimbursed," Zhong said in a statement. "A central payments solution not only creates a much better experience for travelers, [but] it can also help companies gain greater control over their spend, increase policy compliance, improve hotel attachment rates, reduce the risk of fraudulent transactions and streamline invoice reconciliation."
CWT said its first customers using the central payment tool for hotels—one in the energy sector, the other in life sciences—over the course of three months have seen up to 60 percent improvement in hotel attachment rates and a 20 percent increase in use of corporate negotiated hotel rates. In addition to negotiated rates, the payment tool can pay for any hotel content including CWT business rates and bookings off the global distribution system from aggregators or CWT's direct API connections with hotels, according to CWT.
The offering joins the central payment offering for air and rail bookings in China already offered by CWT, which the TMC "have been widely adopted" by clients.
CWT currently is in the midst of a $570 million acquisition by American Express Global Business Travel. The TMCs expect that transaction to close in the second half of this year.