Post-pandemic business travel has picked up and a Colorado company that handles hotel reservations for businesses worldwide is expanding its services to keep pace.
Hotel Engine, based in Denver, announced new services this week to make it easier for companies to arrange lodging for big groups and to reschedule or cancel travel plans without worrying about cancelation fees.
Hotel Engine founder and CEO Elia Wallen said Wednesday that companies lose millions of dollars every week on unused hotel rooms because policies haven’t adapted to travel needs.
“We can go not too far in the near past with COVID and the shock that created to a lot of people and travel plans,” Wallen said.
Hotel Engine is offering a subscription service called FlexPro, which the company called a first of its kind in the industry. For $200 a month, companies can cancel or alter reservations up to noon on the day of check-in.
Alternatives are to pay for expensive travel insurance or hope the hotel sympathizes with your plight, Wallen said.
“We’ve removed all the ambiguity and gray area around if they can cancel and when they can cancel and why,” Wallen said.
Hotel Engine also unveiled enhancements to its program called Groups, a group booking service. With the help of artificial intelligence, employees recommend lodging options tailored to a company’s needs.
Wallen said it’s cumbersome for companies or others to book lodging for a big group, say 30 to 50 people. “You can’t really do that online. You have to pick up the phone and, as they say, smile and dial and try to find a property and negotiate the best rate. It’s very, very manual.”
Hotel Engine takes some basic information — the number of people going, the dates, any special amenities — and finds options for the company.
“Once they accept the option that they want, they can manage the entire stay online,” Wallen said. “They can handle any paperwork online, make payments online, manage the entire stay, all from a simple dashboard.”
Nancy Collins, the merchandising onboarding specialist at National Assemblers, said in a statement that the group booking service has saved the company several days’ worth of work, “freeing up our team so they can focus on solving more complex business challenges.”
Hotel Engine started in 2015 as a “sub team” of Wallen’s former company, Travelers Haven, which provides temporary housing for business people nationwide. Wallen sold Travelers Haven, also headquartered in Denver, to Blueground earlier this year.
Wallen described Hotel Engine as a business-to-business hotel booking platform. The company says it crowdsources demand from member companies to negotiate better rates on rooms.
Wallen said Hotel Engine connects its 40,000 member companies to a portfolio of 700,000-plus partner hotels worldwide. The company has about 500 employees.
Wallen declined to disclose Hotel Engine’s revenues but said the growth has been “robust.” And while post-pandemic business travel hasn’t bounced back as quickly as leisure travel, Wallen said certain segments are busy, especially as infrastructure projects get underway across the country.
“Small and medium-sized businesses are very robust. There’s a lot happening,” Wallen said.
A recent study by Deloitte said corporate travel grew about twofold over 2022 and spending on travel is expected to rise to nearly three-quarters of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year.
As people have continued to work remotely, companies are planning trips to bring employees together, Wallen said.
“Businesses still want to get together in person, albeit not every day in the office,” Wallen said. “They are trying to reconnect and they’re trying to do this in different places to keep things fresh.”
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