One of my clients recently gave me the nickname "The Metric Man" because of my warped affinity toward developing and finding viable and useable travel metrics (I have little social life). The marketing side of me thought it was catchy and I probably should brand and own it. However, the egotistical side of me was thinking it was dangerously close to "The Muffin Man" and I'd lose any 'street cred' I've worked hard to obtain. Maybe I'll let the readers decide if I should wear it as a virtual pocket protector of honor.
Probably the most interesting of the seldom-used travel metrics has been the quantifiable one-number travel score that we rolled out in 2006. We'll save that blog for sometime in the near future as it already has been written about in the trades.
Today, I'll just offer up a couple metrics that should be utilized more often than they are:
1) Percent of Time Where The Preferred Hotel Rate Was Booked:
The story is familiar. A rate is agreed to at a preferred property. The bid is accepted. The rate is loaded, audited, and everything can be put to bed until 3 months from now when it seems like next year's hotel program work already begins again.
However, in addition to working to increase the program compliance and filling city gaps throughout the year, the savvy travel manager should be running analytics that check truly how often the preferred rate or lower is being booked at those properties. By doing this analysis you uncover:
- How well the hotel holds its inventory - whether or not that rate you agreed to is available 100% of the time or 50% of the time
- Situations where the agency rate code may be booked instead of the client rate code
- Frequency of different room types that are booked which may or may not have the corporate rate applied
2) Percent of Time Airline Inventory Classes Are Used on Long-Haul Trips
One of the most recent trends in airline contract is for the carrier to offer up higher discount percentages off the full fare (like J for business class trips) provided it can be booked into a very restricted inventory class (such as I or S). The percent discounts sound extremely attractive and again, the contract gets signed. Two things here to keep in mind
- Know the assumptions of inventory availability. Ask the carriers to provide you with their inventory assumptions about fare availability when you're negotiating the contact. If they say that this high discounted business class fare is available 70% of the time for transatlantic trips, you now have something to measure in addition to being able to estimate future savings.
- Measure those assumptions! By tracking what percent of time you are actually receiving this discount on your trips you now have the ability to engage in constructive dialog with the carriers. You can converse with your airline representative about where adjustments may need to be made to ensure that your travelers are getting the rates at the inventory assumption level you initially expected. I've always maintained that contracts are a bit of a fluid document and should be adjusted to help meet the mutual win-win objective of driving share and saving money. If you're doing your part, I've found carriers amenable to adjusting discount percentages in other classes to ensure that get back to the spirit of the contract.
As always, thanks for reading and we'll see if we get more comments about the nickname or the metrics!
Tom Ruesink is president of Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc. Before founding this company 4 years ago, he was a director for the consulting division of a major TMC and designed much of their analytic deliverable package. He describes himself as a "communicator who got hooked on data." If you have comments or questions about this topic, feel free to contact Tom at tom@ruesinkgroup.com or 952-223-6382. Their website is www.ruesinkgroup.com.