02 | 2017

Touring Madrid

Case Study – process optimisation at Barilla

MICE location check: Atlanta

Rate audits?Do you just upload or are you already checking?

The Hotel ExpertTHE MAGAZINE FOR TRAVEL MANAGEMENT AND HOTEL PROCUREMENT

Dear Readers,

At the beginning of this year, together with the GBTA foundation, we launched a study on upload-ing rates. The aim was to find out how often nego-tiated hotel rates and conditions were incorrectly communicated to companies and how and wheth-er Travel Managers use rate audits to review this. Basically, the objective was to achieve transpar-ency. Across the world (page 8).

However, in recent months, transparency and openness has taken on new meaning outside of the business travel world. We have long taken our democratic values for granted. But the pic-ture has changed, with the battle cry of populists against digitalisation and globalisation on the one hand, contrasting with protectionism and isola-tion on the other.

I don’t often express my political views. But I don't want to let these developments in Europe and the world pass without comment. Our socie-ties’ accomplishments and values are too precious.

Of course, the hard work of our (now 1500) em-ployees is to thank for the growth and success of HRS, along with the progress of digitalisation. But we are also aware that we have been able to develop into a global corporation in a liberal, se-cure environment. Over fifty are together rep-resented under our company roof and we value doing business with each other around the globe on a daily basis.

Indeed, the latest elections in the Netherlands and France show strong signs of openness and to-getherness. Yet the future lies in our hands. Let’s show our true colours and not simply hand the reins over to those who promote segregation and exclusion. Let’s defend the fundamental values of our democracy and our coexistence, because it is only together that we can face the challenges of our time successfully.

So I remain, warmly,

Yours,

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Tobias Ragge,

HRS CEO

Tobias Ragge, HRS CEO

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EDITORIAL

Change management

MICE Atlanta

CTF

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Issue 02 | 2017

CHECK-IN News 4Industry news

TITLE Trust is good, checking is better 8The industry is still failing totransfer negotiated rates from hotelsto businesses.

Groundhog day 14Christian Temath, Director Sourcing Solutions at HRS on frustrations when negotiating corporate rates and solutions to tackle them

BUSINESS TRAVEL A facelift fit for a queen 16Madrid is reinventing itself. The Spanish capital is pushing forward innovative hotel projects and investing heavily in infrastructure.

Madrid: facts and figures 21

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT Faster processes, lower costs 22Case study: The Barilla Group has developed more efficient management of its business travel area. A fine balance.

Power to change 24Major changes within companies require sensitive change management.

MEETINGS & GROUPS Friendly giant 28The biggest airport in the world, a superlative hotel and conference centre industry and the l egendary hospitality of the American South are just a few of Atlanta’s key assets.

CHECK-OUT Stay in control! 36Looking back at the Corporate Travel Forum: in an era of digitalisation and disruption, the industry faces enormous challenges.

8Rate checking

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IMPRINT

Publisher: HRS Hotel Reservation Service Robert Ragge GmbH, Blaubach 32, 50676 Cologne Responsible for the content: Anja Turner, Head of Marketing HRS Global Hotel Solutions | Rainer Puster, phone +49 221 2077-5108 | der-hotelexperte@HRS.com Coordination, editorial work and layout: publish! Medienkonzepte GmbH, Hanover Design: Kirsten SemmlerEditor in Chief: Anke Pedersen Authors: Jürgen Baltes, Stefanie Bisping, Jacqueline Brunsch, Tinga Horny and Rainer PusterCopy-editing: Clemens Bernhard Photographers: David Barnes, David Carreno, Michael Pröck and other sources as listed Copyright: HRS 2017

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Table of contents

MICE made easier A new system for booking conference services. Event plan-ners can now immediately book locations for events ac-cording to budget and format classes – something that was only possible in the past using criteria such as conference flat rates or technology. The Meetago 7 software makes it possible. The online tool provides preconfigured half-day and day packages across three pricing categories. In this way, even companies new to this can easily create requests for proposals; MICE services are also designed to be more clear, thanks to this process. The costs of meeting servic-es are displayed in real time and are based, among other things, on the MICE Club Rate and Instant Book.

A quarter of travel expenses across the world are deemed to be incorrect – and in 15 per-cent of these cases, the traveller is fully aware. Half of all fiddled claims, according to a Concur study, "Accounting 4.0", amount to between 10 and 30 Euros. In a third of all cas-es, the total rises to between 30 and 50 Eu-ros. Most often, travellers try it on when sub-mitting private taxi receipts (23%), restaurant receipts or private parking or petrol tank top ups. These figures were released by Concur, and appeared simultaneously in their "Busi-ness Traveller Report". Digital payment solu-tions increase transparency and significantly reduce the error rate.

Tricky travel costs

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Green business travel

Arriving now... long-distance buses. Accord-

ing to preliminary results from the 2017 VDR

business travel analysis, a quarter of business

travellers intends to hop onto this mode of

transport this year. That’s an increase of 17

percent in comparison to 2015. Bookings of en-

vironmentally-friendly rail travel are expected

to remain at the same high level, according to

41 percent of the 800 German mobility man-

agers who participated in the survey. Sustaina-

bility is becoming ever more important. In the

meantime, one in three companies now say

that environmental protection and social re-

sponsibility has an impact on the tasks of their

mobility managers. This number has more than

doubled in just five years.

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CHECK-IN

Clear rules

Heading on holiday after a business trip? Re-

quests for "Bleisure Travel" are increasing by

70 percent across the world each year, accord-

ing to American Express. For 89 percent of all

companies, these requests are no problem. But

travellers can’t always count on extensive trav-

el protection insurance. A survey by marketing

group Collinson indicated that almost one third

(31%) of the companies that approve this type of

travel do not offer this. So those wishing to turn

their business travel into something more person-

al need to provide their own cover.

Growth1000 Magnuson Hotels are now boosting HRS’ portfolio. The new cooperation part-ner is the world’s largest group of inde-pendent hotels, with premises in six coun-tries, located across Europe, North and South America. The United States is the largest Magnuson market, offering 800 ho-tels. This is how HRS is reacting to the con-stantly growing demand from its business travel customers. The number of HRS cor-porate clients in the USA has tripled since the New York City subsidiary opened in 2015.

Service on request

Hotel service voice control... Marriott is cur-

rently putting Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Al-

exa to the test in the Aloft Hotel in Boston.

On request, the programs should be able to

adjust the light settings, room temperature

or change the TV channel. A Marriott resort

in Texas is going one step further. Here, you

can even order breakfast via voice com-

mand. In the future, according to Marriott’s

vision, Siri and Alexa might even take on

traditional front desk tasks.

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News

Terrorism fearsBusiness travellers are particularly fearful in the face of terrorist at-tacks. 45 percent of all respondents listed the potential threat of at-tacks while travelling at number one in the GBTA study "Risk on the Road". Street crime (15%), illness or disease (13%) and robbery or theft (12%) followed. Despite the recent spate of terrorist attacks, business travellers still consider cities such as Paris, London or New York to be "safe" or "very safe".

Online over Europe

Surfing the Internet on European short-haul flights is set to become a reality from 2018. The European Aviation Net-work (EAN), a dedicated network, should make this possible through the use of LTE tech-nology, says "Heise online". A consortium consisting of Telekom, Inmarsat, Nokia and aircraft designer Thales is behind the lofty plans. The service is likely to be worth it for operators. Accord-ing to the report, some seventy percent of all passengers are prepared to pay for Internet access in the air.

Two milestones

HRS and Altour, America’s largest independent TMC, have

concluded a strategic agreement which allows Altour

full access to HRS’ worldwide hotel portfolio. Altour can

now directly access hotels and rates that go beyond any

uploaded in GDS. This helps companies striving to pro-

vide their travellers with a wide range of hotels and rates

within the booking tool.

A further partnership has been agreed with the New

Zealand-based travel management and booking platform

Serko. Serko customers in the APAC region should bene-

fit from the from the integration of end-to-end services,

through reduced costs, a wider range of hotels on offer

and increased transparency when booking. HRS is in-

creasing its market presence in the Asia Pacific region

thanks to this partnership, while Serko is simultaneously

becoming one of the largest meta search platforms for

corporate travel programs.

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Dates for your diaryConvention4u19/6/2017 – 20/6/2017 | SaalfeldenTips on event planning and developments in the events industry are on the sched-ule for this meeting of conference experts, industry service providers and event or-ganisers.www.acb.at

Travel, MICE and More 06/07/2017 – 07/07/2017 | WiesbadenA schedule full of those ongoing hot top-ics... travel cost settlement and negotia-tions combined with relevant issues such as purchasing strategies and an insight into Travel and Mice Management.www.bme.de/travel

TrendsPort17/08/2017 – 19/08/2017 | FrankfurtFuture workshop for Travel Managers. Business travel experts advise on trends, opportunities and risks relating to busi-ness-based mobility and give their recom-mendations for action.www.vdr-service.de

Swiss Travel Management Forum07/09/2017 | ZürichExpert forum for business travel profes-sionals, allowing enough time for network-ing, plus presentations by experts and round tables.www.vdr-service.de

FVW Congress19/09/2017 – 20/09/2017 | CologneDigitalisation, big data and consum-er trends are the topics tackled by work-shops and lectures at the annual congress for the tourism and mobility industry. Eighty exhibitors on show all at once at the Travel Expo.www.fvw.de

Europe Conference28/11/2017 – 30/11/2017 | FrankfurtAll good things come in threes. The Global Business Travel Association and the VDR are once again combining their major au-tumn conferences.europeconference.gbta.org

Dates

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CHECK-IN

chAPPeau!

The HRS Android app has snapped up two priz-

es at once. In the "Mobility and Travel" catego-

ry, the app scooped first place with the Show

Your App Award 2017. The expert panel of

media and industry specialists was particularly

impressed by the clear booking interface and

the Smarthotel function (check-in and check-

out via the app). On top of that, the app also

took home silver in the Digital Location Heroes

Awards. Here, the HRS app proved a winner,

thanks to its user friendliness, innovation and

compatibility, among other things.

Travel Managers perceive no risk to their jobs through

technological progress. Quite the contrary, in fact.

84.3 percent believe the future of their profession to

be positive, according to a study by Amadeus and the

Association of Corporate Travel Executives. 92.7 per-

cent even see new IT solutions as providing the perfect

complement to their core expertise: namely, develop-

ing travel strategies. Travel Managers would be able

to make greater contributions to conceptual aspects if

they were freed from purely operational tasks.Engine for growth

Business travellers represent an invest-ment when it comes to increasing profits – half of all human resources and procure-ment professionals in European companies are certain of this. Brits (76%) and Ger-mans (54%) are particular proponents of this view, as indicated in the annual Euro-pean Business Travel Barometer by Amer-ican Express. So it’s a bit of a surprise that travel budgets for 2016 rose by just one percent. An increase in growth of 2.5 per-cent was expected over the course of this year. Business travel is mostly attributed to supporting existing customers (32%) and new customer acquisition (22%).

Time for optimists

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News

TEXT: ANKE PEDERSEN

Trust is good, checking is better

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TITLE

The industry revels in visions of the future, thanks to Travel 4.0 and networking. Unfortunately, the reality of it falls somewhat short of the dream, meaning a negotiated rate has to be transferred from the hotel to the company. Worse yet, until now, hardly anyone has noticed.

For Inge Pirner, the fun stops short when the topic of negotiated rates arises. "I think it’s shocking that we all invest time in these negotiations and then when it comes to

checking the negotiated rates, we realise some-thing is wrong," comments the exasperated Trav-el Manager at IT service provider Datev eG. "And if you then query it with the hotel, the response is ‘Oh, we have a technical problem here’ or ‘It was an accident’."Of course, Pirner is focussed on the potential fi-nancial loss. But she also has to manage to im-plement the associated necessary checks, "which I then have to follow up on, to see whether the rates that are uploaded match". And on top of that, how am I supposed to track – or indeed prove – which categories had availabilities and which didn’t?" That has to be demonstrated every time, possibly with a screenshot, which is an unrealis-tic undertaking, since availabilities vary in the in-dividual booking channels and change constantly."So who’s prepared to agree on rates if they then aren’t adhered to?" summarises Inge Pirner. Since the phenomenon of incorrectly uploaded negoti-ated rates seems to have gone far beyond just the odd one-off case, VDR have recently launched a "Rate Uploading Task Force", to identify sources of error and then eliminate these, as far as possi-ble. Pirner: "It’s not just about the rates, it’s also about availabilities!" Im

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Negotiated Rates

One in six of all corporate rates is incorrectIndeed, the topic of rate uploading seems to be an urgent matter. In a study carried out by the GBTA Foundation, more than one in six rates turned out to be incorrect. Further analysis of data per-formed by HRS even showed this value to be more than twenty percent: either the price wasn’t right or additional services were not adhered to as agreed. But how is this even possible? How have things got to this point? The radical change to pricing policies in chains ten years ago is one of the

reasons. No matter if it was Ac-cor or Best Western, back in

2007, these chains deviat-ed dramatically from their long-term volume pric-ing policy and suggest-ed that their corporate customers complement-ed these with daily rates.

Rates which then of course were subject to certain re-

strictions. The clear goal was

"If the input for entering extras is communicated via a free text box instead of the screen provided, then errors can easily be transmitted here."

Marina Christensen,

Best Western:

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Negotiated rates reach bookers through multiple channelsA lack of industry standards, interfaces and even human errors can lead to inconsistencies

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to achieve maximum utilisation at the maximum price for each available room.The hotel industry has been yielding to this since the nineties. Yet compared with airlines’ rate mod-els, the pricing policy appeared rather basic. Only the triumphant progress of new media has ena-bled the hotel sector to apply pricing that can be adapted minute-by-minute to current demand, says Monika Gommolla, in charge of the German hotel chain Maritim. That’s exactly what the hotel industry has then proceeded to do, resulting in a situation where the various booking systems are literally flooded with a wave of differing rates for the various room categories and additional ser-vices (extras).

Insufficient industry standards – a key source of errorChristian Temath, Director of Sourcing Solutions at HRS, also attributes four in ten rates being up-loaded incorrectly back to the lack of industry standards. What begins in hotels with up to fif-ty different room categories extends to currency differences, right through to incorrect calculations about breakfast services. He admits it is no sur-

prise, "if the field for entering extras is communi-cated via a free text box instead of the interface provided, then errors can easily be transmitted here." And then there’s then the booking paths and chan-nels! Regardless of the way a company receives its negotiated rates, they’ve been communicat-ed in multiple ways beforehand (refer to graph-ic). Let’s take Best Western’s rates. Indeed, the Sales and Marketing Director for Europe, Marina Christensen, says: "The error rate shocks me." At the end of the day, both hotels and partners are "extremely interested in avoiding errors, for ex-ample in the volume rates negotiated with cor-porate clients".However, she imagines the biggest likelihood of errors occurring is during the momentum which gathers when the negotiated data is transferred from the CRS to other systems. For example, "at this point, GDS sends us a special Rate Access Code, which we then have to link to our data," explains Christensen and adds laconically, "This is something ‘old school’, to some extent, as GDS and CRS systems have developed historically and inflexibly, and their functions have become ob-

Negotiated rates reach bookers through multiple channels

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Negotiated Rates

solete. This often collides with today’s fast web systems that work very easily at the push of a button." That’s why Best Western are continuing to focus on process and transfer chain automa-tion in order to minimise error rates, Christensen goes on to explain.But is that enough? At the end of the day, an er-ror can occur at any point in the process chain – perhaps even during the RFP stage. All it needs is a hotel operator or his key account manager to make a numerical typo. Or it could even occur right at the very end of the process, because a

company uses its travellers as the final stage of compliance checking. The conclusion?

You’ll notice an incorrect rate.

Rate audits? Of course! Well, sometimes...But is this really the case? HRS and GBTA Foundation wanted to find out more and surveyed Travel Manag-

ers across the world about how they handle negotiated rates. And lo and

behold... incorrectly uploaded negotiated

rates are just one side of the coin. The flipside re-veals the rather half-hearted approach to the is-sue taken by corporate staff. In fact, according to the study, hardly any Travel Managers assumed that their hard-won negotiated rates applied to travellers correctly, without exception. Neverthe-less, the main issue lies with checks rather than a laissez faire attitude. Even though ninety percent of all respondents stated that rate audits must be carried out reg-ularly, hardly any confirmed that such regular checks were performed. Quite the contrary, in fact. More than half (56%) only checked their rates when they were uploaded into the respec-tive booking systems, perhaps once a year (re-fer to graphic). Only a minority (3%) checked on a week or monthly basis (6%). But what exactly do these checks look like? More than half (52%) of Corporate staff perform these internally, and indeed manually, a further 36% rely on the vig-ilance of their travellers and hope they will re-port such errors. Quite simply, this leaves Kate Vasiloff stunned. As the Director of Research at the GBTA Founda-

Kate Vasiloff, GBTA

Foundation: Audits as

a solution approach

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But regular audits are only performed by a small proportion of companies.

Potential for improvement in terms of frequency and source

5% statistical deviation

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As companies are not performing regular audits and count on unreliable

data sources, their hotel costs are significantly higher as a result

of incorrect rates.

Rate audits worldwide

Frequency of rate audits

of Travel Managers say

they check hotel rates

86 %

9 % check once

a month

or more

29 % always check

when a rate is

uploaded

30 % every couple

of months27 % check once

a year

tion, she was jointly responsible for the study and now feels obliged to shake things up. "Companies are simply throwing money away," she says, ab-solutely appalled. "Just because they aren’t per-forming these checks!" And why not carry out such a simple step, when they’ve spent so much time and energy on the negotiations in the first place? Allegedly because they have no capacity for internal audits or outsourcing. "But these ar-guments are wrong," Vasiloff emphasises. Simply by performing professional rate checks, compa-nies would recoup huge amounts of money. Her plea therefore is, "audit and invest in your back-end systems!"

Real-time auditing in focus"It’s not a sexy topic, but it has huge potential," concedes Sarah Busse, HRS Director of Sales Strat-egy & Steering. And it may be that many Corpo-rate staff truly need the GBTA-HRS study to be aware of the importance of this matter, on the provider side, feverish work has long been car-ried out on developing checking mechanisms to go beyond the GDS rate audits that have been de-

ployed as standard until now. The HRS team, for example, have recently automated auditing cor-porate rates as part of their sourcing solution. The company also has great expectations from the re-al-time rates auditing and filtering process, which is envisaged in the next step. And the "Rate Uploading Task Force" in the VDR (business traveller association)? They have also decided to push forward the topics of standard-isation and testing. Something that fits perfect-ly in line with the slogan, "Trust is good, checking is better."

When it comes to incorrect rates, corporations generally

pay 14% more than the agreed rate.

Around one in six

hotel rates (17%) is incorrectly uploaded.

Source: GBTA Foundation Rate Audit Study 2017. 418 participants.

(Multiple answers possible)

Download the study at

corporate.hrs.com/int/rate-protector

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Negotiated Rates

Source of the rate audit information

Internal, through manual work 52 %

TMC 38 %

Business travellers 36 %

Hotel 16 %

Hotel solution provider 15 %

Third-party/consultant/consultant 11 %

Other 4 %

As part of a worldwide study with the GBTA Foundation, you discovered that a sixth of all rates have been uploaded incorrectly. What’s going wrong here for companies?

On the one hand, of course, there’s the matter of direct costs. The study, along with internal data analyses, have shown us that rates set too high are on average, 14% higher than the negotiated price of an overnight stay. Through internal data evaluation, we have determined that the error rate is actually over twenty percent. That’s be-cause there are also missing or incorrectly priced additional services, such as breakfast, of which

16% are incorrectly priced on average.

But how is it possible for error rates to be so high?

The issue of data transparency has been gaining importance within cor-porations for years, and there is more and more demand for it in

the field of travel management, too. In any case, in many places, it is still a

manual process, because there is no an

auditing tool and as a result, there is an incred-ible number of rates and booking channels. And often, there is a certain degree of tiredness, if a Travel Manager has spent six months negotiat-ing a rate – then they simply want to leave the issue behind. For this reason, the uploaded rates are not checked, or only rarely.

And what solution is HRS offering its clientèle?

Purchasing is one thing, getting the right quality is another. A significant proportion of my nego-tiated rates are not available or incorrect – and that’s where I had negotiated for six months.As part of end-to-end strategy, we have there-fore begun automated auditing in the service portfolio around sourcing. By means of this ser-vice, we will address all the errors that arise through rate uploading. There is also no stand-ard for seasonalities, such as breakfast being billed since this is entered in a free text field, or incorrect room categories having been uploaded.

So how exactly does the service work?

The system automatically compares the upload-ed rates with the parameters negotiated and in the event of deviations, initiates a correction process with the hotel. In this way, we can sig-nificantly reduce the error rate and we are also seeing the result that many error sources are predicted in advance when the next batch of rates are uploaded, so the proportion of incor-rect rates reduces gradually. Through Sourcing, we optimise the hotel program by means of the completed negotiations – and aim to break old habits in hotel procurement, with this new ap-proach.

Groundhog day

INTERVIEW: RAINER PUSTER

Corporate rates are negotiated at length... But does an entirely different rate end up in the system? Annoying, but it’s no wonder in view of the lack of industry standards and inconsistent processes. However, HRS have ways and means of addressing – and correcting – these errors, according to Director of Sourcing Solutions, Christian Temath.

Christian Temath,

HRS: Driving forward

automation

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What does this mean?

Thanks to our analyses, we know that there is an imbalance in the hotel programs: the large global chains dominate, even though they only represent a small part of the market. There are risks associat-ed with this. The ongoing consolidation in this sec-tor shifts the bargaining power in some markets, to the detriment of corporations. Furthermore, the cost of acquisitions has to be reflected. As a result, chain-wide discounts are offered, which is great for the chains but represents a risk for corpora-tions, who lose out on planning security.This is where HRS comes into play. As a mediator, we know the hotel market inside out – and that of-fers potential for customers to extend their "hunt-ing ground". In addition to existing hotels, which corporations frequently continue to request, we also look for alternatives outside of the global chains – always keeping in mind the needs of the customers. Here, independent hotels, but region-al and local chains too, provide a significant lever. In the first round of bids, hotels that are already in the system have a few percentage points of ad-vantage compared to the previous year’s rate. That is – together with the following back and forth – almost a ritual.

And the alternatives you select, are they cheaper than the existing hotels?

An evaluation of these gives us a point of com-parison to benchmark data from other corpo-rations. But new hotels initially tend to orient themselves around the pricing of existing hotels – which doesn’t really bring any real dynamism. Then HRS had an idea... why not approach the hotels BEFORE the sourcing season and request

a competitive price? Sort of a pre-qualification round. We offer that rate in the new HRS Market Place, where we especially support these inde-pendent hotels with information and advice, so that they have a fair chance to get into the cor-porate customer sector. These hotels are general-ly not as familiar with the RFP process as the big chains. Without individual advice and support, the response rates in this sector only lie around ten to thirty percent. So our goal is always to cre-ate a win-win situation for both the hotel and the corporation. We give a good hotel (that may have previously been overlooked in these invitations to tender) market information such as, "The existing rates are here, the needs of the customer are described – if you go in at five percent less, then you have a good chance of getting your foot in the door with a major customer." And we say to the customer, "look at this rate, should we invite this hotel to ten-der?" And the answer is usually "Of course", and THEN a new dynamic is created that breaks the pattern. In addition, the pre-qualification step re-sults in massive process optimisation as the bid-ding rounds are reduced.

Back to rate uploading and auditing. We still seem to be a long way off having a completely error-free idea of the results of negotiations?

The objective is real-time audits and a filter that automatically pinpoints incorrect rates until they are fixed. We’re working on both. We want to shine light into the dark and HRS Rate Protector is help-ing to make the industry think about the issue of the supply chain. That’s because the GBTA results clearly show that rate auditing is more important than many companies previously thought.

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Negotiated Rates

The olives are brought to the table first, closely followed by Manchego cheese and potato croquettes, filled with bechamel sauce and ham. A plate of wafer-thin sliced

"jamón iberico" comes next, sourced from acorn-fed pigs. A tower of grilled vegetables and sweet, lukewarm peppers completes the meal. But here, that’s just for starters. Now onto the main course... a tender lamb shank, salt-seasoned and cooked for hours. It is shortly after 3 pm and one of the oldest inns in Madrid’s city centre, la Posada de la Villa, slowly fills with guests."The Spanish siesta is a myth," explains David Noack Perez, while the waiter brings dessert. What the director of Madrid’s Convention Bureau means, is that Spaniards in the capital work at least as hard as employees in other capital cities.But when the "Madrileños" aren’t eating a quick sandwich at midday but are instead sitting down to a business lunch, then they take their time. A lot of time. "Food is very important to us, it’s part of our culture", says Noack Perez. And this culture of relishing mealtimes has survived every crisis so far – including the most recent. The city’s inhabitants haven’t ever stopped eat-ing out, although perhaps more expensive op-tions were avoided.

Millions spent on hotel renovationsBut after years of decline and drastic measures for the Spaniards, the economy is beginning to re-cover. In the last two years, the high rate of un-employment fell below twenty percent, which is low for the country. The first signs of recovery emerged in Madrid, where large companies are once again investing millions into their hotels. "The change happened when the NH Collection Hotel on the Paseo del Prado was renovated," ex-plains Noack Perez. In 2014, it was the first five-star hotel to reopen following full renovation on the famed museum mile.Since then, a great deal has been invested in the four and five-star hotel bracket. There is sub-stantial demand. Finally, in a business sense, everything is coming together for the landlocked capital city. Three-quarters of the 2000 largest Spanish companies house their headquarters here and approximately another 2000 multinationals have representative offices. Currently, Madrid has 743 hotels boasting over 80,000 beds. And soon there will be even more.The lack of free space means that in the old city centre, listed historic palaces, former banks and monasteries are to be converted into high-lev-el hotels. An example of this is the Meliá Group,

TEXT: TINGA HORNY · PHOTOS: DAVID CARRENO

A facelift fit for a QueenThe gradual recovery of the Spanish economy has been like a wake-up call. Spain’s capital city is feeling refreshed, thanks to a whole range of exciting hotel projects and city centre redevelopment. Madrid will not only step out of Barcelona’s shadow, it will show for itself that it has its very own lifestyle to offer.

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Madrid

one of Spain’s largest hotel corporations, who have transformed an old hotel into the Gran Meliá Palacio de los Duques, at a cost of around 19 mil-lion Euro. To do so, a palace and the neighbour-ing cloisters were combined.The Barceló Torre de Madrid is also new to the city and is housed in the Plaza de España in a building of archaeological interest dating from the 1950s. The only high-rise building in the city

centre, the hotel will occupy the first nine floors and was transformed by the designer Jaime Hayo. Both hotels skilfully combine the respective his-torical peculiarities of the architecture with mod-ern elements.The Plaza de España is one of the few downtown locations where space remains for new hotel de-velopments. In 2017, the Spanish chain VP Hote-les is also planning to open a hotel offering 214 rooms on this square.In view of the desire of Spanish hoteliers to make these investments, international premium chains have also joined in the fray. Until recently, for such

a metropolis with over three million inhabitants, they were somewhat under-represented. That is soon set to change. In the old town, in the vicini-ty of constantly teeming plaza Puerta de Sol, sev-eral blocks are currently undergoing renovation as part of the Canalejas project. Four Seasons is set to inaugurate a hotel here this year and virtu-ally opposite, the competition, Starwood, has an-nounced their presence with a W Hotel.Furthermore, the somewhat dated classic Ritz on the Paseo del Prado is also due a facelift, and not before time. After its sale to Mandarin Orien-tal and the Saudi Arabian Olayan Group, the ho-tel is set to undergo a total renovation in 2017. With the ambition of returning to its former glo-ry as the best hotel on the plaza, an investment of some eighty million euros is planned.

"Madrid is somewhat unknown"The new hotels are competing not only for the favour of a rapidly growing tourist industry, but also for business travellers and congress attend-ees. This is where not only David Noack Perez, but the entire sector, always comes up against com-parisons with Barcelona. The Catalan capital has been successfully marketing itself since the Olym-pic Games in 1992. So successfully, in fact, that the city of 1.6 million inhabitants was almost overrun by over thirty million visitors last year, of which a good half are day trippers and cruise travellers.With nine million guests each year, Madrid doesn’t

All go: Madrid in the morning

Only a few places remain in Spain's capital where new hotels can be constructed.

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BUSINESS TRAVEL

yet have this problem. Quite the contrary. "We still need to work on getting Madrid recognised in the first place," says Noack Perez. And Barceló Man-ager Maria Gudiel summarises it succinctly: "Ma-drid is a somewhat unknown city, given that it is the capital city of Spain."This is perhaps due to the fact that the metropo-lis is convincing enough in itself and doesn’t try to cause a stir. At the end of the day, the coun-try has been ruled from this city since the 16th century. Foreign visitors, Spaniards from every province and emissaries from all over the world – "Madrileños" have always been used to this melt-ing pot, even though it is a long time since Spain was a colonial power. On the Plaza Mayor, the centre of the old town, bullfights once took place celebrated by King and people. Today the whole world still meets here, enjoying a refreshment in the numerous cafés, listening to open-air concerts or celebrating the football victories of Real Ma-drid or Atlético.But even Spain’s capital cannot remain quietly in the past. The city has relied on its history for a long time. The Royal Palace, Prado and Velazquez – that sums it up. Yet if the financial crisis has re-sulted in something positive, then this is it. It did not only make its inhabitants suffer, but has also driven them forward – "Necessity is the mother of invention". And that’s how the city centre has come to reinvent itself since the noughties. Af-fordable living costs and rent, combined with the

Top 3 business hotels As recommended by Raquel Corrales, Hotel Sales Manager at HRS

Silken Puerta AméricaThis five-star designer hotel is conveniently located halfway be-tween the Barajas Adolfo Suárez airport and the city centre, on Avenida de América. A free shut-tle bus connects the airport and the hotel. The special thing about the hotel is that each floor was designed by a renowned architect or designer. Single rooms from 144 euros.

Axor Feria and Axor BarajasThese two modern sister hotels were opened in 2009, are located next to each other and each have a garden with a pool. The four-star hotels each offer over 500 spacious rooms. The Barajas Ad-olfo Suárez airport is around five kilometres away and a free shut-tle takes guests to the terminals. Single rooms from 80 euros.

Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel & Conference CenterNo other hotel in Madrid is as large as this Marriott hotel. With 869 bright, stylishy decorat-ed rooms as well as 56 meeting rooms, the four-star hotel is ide-al for conferences and meetings. Five restaurants, a pool and a fit-ness centre are part of the attrac-tion. It is conveniently place for the airport, which is just five kilo-metres away. Single rooms from 148 euros.

Touching the sky: on Avenida de la Castellana,

Madrid’s skyscrapers stretch up

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Madrid

fact that Spaniards are paid two years’ unemploy-ment allowance in one go, has resulted in numer-ous small businesses.

New trendy neighbourhoodsBars, cafés, ice cream shops, sandwich delis, designer shops and many mini breweries have sprung up. Small craft and speciality shops were founded. This is how Madrid has become a para-dise for those happy to explore. This development is particularly noticeable north of the elegant av-enue of Grand Vía, in an area which consisted of rather dismal residential districts 15 years ago. But now, the neighbourhoods of Malasaña and Chueca are hip hotspots.While Malasaña is somewhat alternative, luring visitors in with inexpensive restaurants, old hand-icrafts and hip fashion, Chueca scores highly with tapas and chic designer venues. Chueca is above all the darling of the gay scene, but the best thing is that pubs, tapas bars, shops and pubs are open to all. No one is excluded. The residents of Madrid

are liberal and tolerant. At all times of year, resi-dents and visitors can be found ambling through avenues in the afternoons, with children and dogs playing in the plazas, and pavement cafés have tables and chairs set up outside. And everyone, absolutely everyone, can be found wandering the early evenings in the pedestrian Fuencarral.Thanks to new hotels, up-and-coming districts and excellent infrastructure within the compact city centre – the metro connects the modern air-port with the city in just half an hour – Madrid is successfully sliding into focus as a travel desti-nation. As a result, the World ATM Congress, the most important flight management event, is tak-ing place for the fifth time in Madrid this year, and 20,000 oncologists will be attending ESMO (Euro-pean Congress of Medical Oncology). In the mean-time, Madrid has deliberately begun to compete on the exhibition and trade fair market with Ber-lin, London, Paris and Vienna. David Noack Perez therefore no longer needs to say, "we’re one of the largest cities in Europe, but nobody knows it."

Radiant: the Capitol building (centre) is the jewel in the crown of shopping street Gran Vía

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BUSINESS TRAVEL

Facts and figures

Travelling to MadridLufthansa (daily), Iberia and Air Europe operate non-stop flights from Frankfurt to Madrid. Air Berlin, Iberia and Ryanair serve Berlin and Hamburg. Air Berlin and Iberia also fly from Stuttgart and Ryanair from Nuremberg to the Spanish capital. Depending on the airport, the flight time is two and a half to three hours.All flights land at Barajas Adolfo Suárez airport, which is the fifth-largest in Europe, with four terminals. It is located twelve kilometres from the city centre. A taxi to the centre costs 30 to 35 euros. At 4.90 euros, hopping on the metro to the city cen-tre on line 8 is often not just cheaper but faster too, taking just thirty minutes. You have to change, depending on your desti-nation, at the station Nuevos Ministerios. A shuttle bus, the Air-port Express, operates round-the-clock between Atocha train station and the airport, making three stops, among them the bus interchange Cibeles. A ride costs 5 euros.

Travel in the cityMadrid’s city centre is compact. All destinations in the city cen-tre between the Royal Palace, Plaza de España, Gran Vía and Paseo del Prado can be quickly and easily reached on foot. Al-ternatively, hop on the metro. Twelve lines connect across the entire city. The next metro station is never far away. A single ticket costs between 1.50 and 3 euros. For visitors, it is often worth getting a Tourist Card, so you can hop on and off as much as you want. One day costs 8.40 euros. Taxis are not expensive, but are not always the fastest means of transport due to traffic.

Dates to dodgeWeather-wise, Madrid is always in season. Due to its landlocked location, there is little rainfall and the climate offers cool crisp winters – with an aver-age temperature of six degrees – and hot summers. Christmas time is family focused. Even then you can find Madrid’s inhabitants on the streets, but the date is celebrated privately and there are no large events. Holidays such as May 2 and the city’s San Isidro festival on May 15 are best avoided for busi-ness events. August is also to be avoided due to the summer holidays and local holidays San Cayetano and San Lorenzo (7 and 10 August). Madrid’s hotels have been filled due to major medical conferences, and will be filled once again this year: renal experts (3 to 6 June, ERA-EDTA), haematological experts (22 to 25. June, EHA), dentists (29 August to 1 Septem-ber, FDI), oncologists (8 to 12 September, ESMO), each with around 20,000 participants.

Hotel prices in 2016Nightly average 86.10 euros.

EconomyFrom foreign direct investments, it is easy to see that Spain’s capital is one of the big winners in the emerg-ing economic recovery. As such, in the last quarter of 2016 alone, 2.615 billion euros flowed into the city, twelve percent more than in the corresponding month last year. The USA was among the biggest for-eign investors, with a share of 23.6 percent, followed by the Netherlands with 21.5 percent.

Great prospects: multiple roof terraces in Moncloa offer an-other perspective to the hustle and bustle of the streets

Madrid

Faster processes, lower costsAt the start, the Barilla Group was hoping for more efficient management of the business travel sector; at the end of the integration, various billing and payment solutions were included in the in-house management system. HRS is receiving increased hotel bookings. That was in 2014. In 2016, the Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale of the Politecnico di Milano took stock.

TEXT: HRS

Since launching the HRS booking system, the cost of overnight stays have noticeably dropped for Baril-la. This is the most specific, important advantage for the group. Smart procurement is responsible for

these savings: Barilla has particularly managed to optimise their hotel portfolio by bundling bookings and generating discounts through Intelligent Sourcing – the HRS service for hotel procurement and rate negotiations.

Overnight costs: down ten percentThe booking system itself also contributes to the cost reduc-tions. That’s because, simply on the basis of the best-buy principle, it reserves the cheapest hotel offer at the time of booking. Overall, an analysis of booking data from subsidi-aries in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden shows that over-nighting costs in 2015 were almost ten percent lower than in the previous year – i.e., before the introduction of HRS.Barilla can also pinpoint further savings in the field of trans-action costs. In 2014, the Italians still had to pay all ac-counting transaction fees, even those associated with the negotiated flat rate. However, HRS does not apply transac-tion fees for bookings made via its own booking system, so that this cost factor is done away with. On top of that,

since HRS has been on board, the travel agents who remain in charge of complex bookings have lowered their prices as a result. As such, the result here for Barilla has been unex-pectedly lower costs.

Process efficiency – invisible cost reductionFor management at Barilla, it was not only a question of re-ducing direct costs. As expected, after implementing the HRS solution, the associated processes have been significantly streamlined, from hotel booking right through to accounting.• Speedier reservation process: Thanks to an internal HRS

evaluation mechanism, the booker is shown preferred ho-tels whose location and price corresponds with the the destination and purpose of their journey. As a result, the booking process is much faster, since the business traveller is taken directly to the best selection for the traveller and the company, instead of having to laboriously compare var-ious aspects of their accommodation of their own accord.

• Increased flexibility – reduced cancellation fees: In most HRS hotels, a traveller can cancel a booking of their own accord, on the day of travel, up to 6 pm. To date, this way is preferred to that of travel agents appointed by the group.

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TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

• More efficient logistics. - The more than 200,000 independent hotels that make

up the HRS hotel range provide Barilla travellers with ac-cess to an extensive range of accommodation to choose from. In contrast to the United States, independent ho-tels, rather than chain ones, dominate the market in large parts of Europe and Asia. This provides Barilla employ-ees the certainty that they will be able to find a great selection of hotels, even outside of metropolitan areas. The resulting proximity of hotels and work locations also keeps costs low during travel, as well as saving time.

- Grouping booking volumes also gives employees over-nighting in the same hotel the opportunity to share their transport costs.

• Automated accounting: The seamless integration of the HRS solution into the Barilla management and payment system enables automation of expense reports. This can save up to ten minutes per business trip – when calculating that over a year and across the entire company, Barilla saves hun-dreds of hours of work.

• Shorter response time: Since Travel Management receive detailed reports significantly faster than before HRS took on the service, it can react much more quickly to changes.

Below the line – and taking into account all the benefits that the investments in system integration and the change man-agement supported by HRS – the project for Barilla has cov-ered its costs in just eleven months.Actually, the value contribution goes even further. The direct monetary benefits can be measured on top of this, with a very low error rate, however there are also indirect benefits achieved through process optimisation. This means, that Ba-rilla has been able to make significantly higher savings than can be measured within the framework of the analysis. These cost benefits are expected to be even higher in the coming years, as fewer resources will be required for change man-agement. Furthermore, employees will be increasingly satis-fied and automatically turn to the HRS booking solution.

Barilla is a family-run food company…

... from Italy. Founded in 1877, today, the inter-

national group operates in more than a hundred

countries. Barilla is the world market leader in the

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Barilla case study

Five years ago, business travel manage-ment at consultancy firm CPC AG was "a completely distributed process," says Travel Manager Burkhard Prumbs. In oth-

er words, it didn’t really exist. Back then, each of the approximately one hundred consultants was in charge of booking their own travel – according to their needs and preferences – and then logged them as travel expenses. Such a "high degree of personal responsibility" is part and parcel of the firm, explains Prumbs.But this era was over when CPC’s own Shared Service Center was launched in 2012. Since then, Human E-Source GmbH, of which Prumbs is direc-tor, has taken on the management of accounting, travel management, and even employee pension provision for CPC – and in the meantime, other companies have requested these services too. One of the first projects that Prumbs took on was Travel Management (which simply didn’t ex-ist back then). This shook everything up. Sudden-ly there was a shared credit card, a company rail account, a hotel portal where bookings had to be made, preferred hire car providers and much more. "We went from total autonomy to central-

ised, standardised processes," says Prumbs.

"Resistance is normal"Interventions such as these, which interfere with employees’ belov-ed freedoms, are not usually well received. "This is a normal and an entirely human response," says Ur-sula Bohn, Consultant at consulting

firm Capgemini Consulting and edi-tor of Capgemini’s change manage-

ment study. Anyone who has to give up

their favourite habits – indeed, even their hated ones – reacts against this instinctively. "People are reluctant to get involved with something new. It’s pretty much a given that initially it will be more uncomfortable, because the routine has vanished."If change is coming, regardless of whether it re-lates to responsibilities in sales, a more stringent travel directive or a new accounting system, it is vital that the affected employees are willing to take the path too – out of their own conviction. Otherwise, all the effort might be for nothing. "Big changes must always be accompanied by commu-nication and other such measures," recommends Bohn. The technical jargon for this is "change man-agement".

"Not all at once"As an employee of a consulting firm, Prumbs was aware of how delicately the matter had to be han-dled. As a result, he planned the individual steps carefully and accompanied them with appropri-ate change management.Step one on Prumb’s list? Don’t introduce all the changes at once. "The changes to rail travel were the first thing we introduced, because the ad-vantages here were clear," explains the expert. Employees use the train a lot and bookings are almost always made at short notice. So here, in-stead of having to wait in line at a ticket machine and pay travel expenses privately, bookings are now easily made online using the CPC corporate account and tickets are conveniently sent to mo-bile phones. Payment is taken in the background using a central travel card. "The employees quickly identified the advantages and we scored a point," remembers Prumbs. Gradually, hotel and car hire bookings and then straightforward flights were

TEXT: JÜRGEN BALTES

Power to change"Nothing is as constant as change." Such wisdom probably applies to every area of life. But not everyone feels positive about change, especially if they don't know the benefits. This can lead to problems within companies. That’s why major changes require careful management.

Burkhard Prumbs,

Human E-Source

GmbH: sensitive

change management

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"The employees quickly identified the advantages and we scored a point."

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Change management

switched over to new standardised booking pro-cesses, all of which took around a year. In the case of rail bookings, which Prumbs is proud of – acceptance of the new booking method is now around 95 percent.

Patronising? No, real service!Yet something that sounds so easy has only been made possible by closely monitoring the em-ployees. "We’ve communicated the whole time," Prumbs recalls, "but we focussed on highlighting recent success stories to make people curious and get them on side." The reasons behind the meas-ures were explained – essentially to access lower prices – and the advantages were sold to staff in the best possible light, in line with the ideas that "there is a standardised process, but it’s actually more flexible than before" or "you really shouldn’t be paying for anything on site... except for some flowers for your wife". These warm words were accompanied by solid support, such as training sessions on how to use the new booking process, solving individual problems, and on top of that, a travel agency was always on hand as a back up.After they crossed the first hurdle, then it was possible to "build on" that, as Prumbs puts it. All other new features and regulations around trav-el management were then perceived as an addi-tional service, rather than a controlling approach from above.

Communication is not a one-way streetBohn, a consultant, knows that the right commu-nication during change management is everything. However, she warns, this must in no case be in-terpreted as one-sided. It is important to "gather" opinions from employees, to identify their needs and let them have their say. "Often, it’s about small obstacles that are easy to overcome, such as complex log-in processes or something similar."The same is true for managers, who have to have a solid grasp of things. After all, not all those who promote change actually apply it themselves, the trained sociologist remarks. This particularly ap-plies to middle management.Prumbs also tried to understand the needs and feelings of his colleagues before anything else – "otherwise I might begin and have made assump-tions that didn’t actually apply". An internal survey revealed that anything that did away with flexibil-

ity was unwanted, such as approval processes and the like. The idea of an assistant to make the book-ings, which travellers then had to print out, also proved unpopular. "So we were able to put those ideas aside right from the start," says Prumbs. "I check the vouchers sporadically and employees are pleased that they retain their independence."For Bohn, as a consultant, the art of successful change management lies in the balancing act be-tween seriously involving employees while trans-mitting a clear message: there is no way back. That’s why she focuses strongly on what she re-fers to as "sponsors" – employees who are en-thused about the next step and thereby draw others in.

Sticking points for change

- The correct objective: if the target image isn’t

right or is formulated too vaguely, this can only

be corrected with a lot of effort – or perhaps

not at all.

- Support from above: change projects which are

initiated from the second or third level of man-

agement often fail to progress. Top management

must be clearly behind it.

- Communication: A good information policy and

productive exchange with employees are essen-

tial factors for success in all change projects.

- Sustainability: success must be sustainable.

Management figures often begin to celebrate

their successes without realising it has all al-

ready begun to crumble beneath their feet!

- Patience: change doesn’t happen overnight.

Everyone needs some time to adjust to new

circumstances.

- The right speed: it must not overwhelm or

indeed underwhelm organisational structures.

This is often why change projects fail in prac-

tice, because they take too long and get "lost"

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TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

Change: only when okayed from above!

Ms Bohn, can you tell us about the change projects you’re working on? Currently, change is above all linked to techni-cal developments. This has a great impact on many aspects, such as business processes, the structures teams work in, communication and working speeds.

When is real change management practical? Whenever the change implies a certain degree of complexity, perhaps if more than one department or various aspects are affected, as is the case when it comes to dig-italisation. If however, lorry drivers are re-ceiving new vehicles, then change man-agement is not required – simply training.

When should change management start? When the project does. At the start, it shouldn’t take a lot of energy, but im-portant questions should be clarified: when will we inform which target groups? Do they simply need to be informed or do

we also need their cooperation? What resistance is to be expected? How can we counter this? If the roll-out is immi-nent, it is generally too late for this.

And if projects fail? This does happen and cannot be com-pletely discounted beforehand. For me, one factor for suc-cess is ensuring the employees have room to think and to draw these ideas into the design process. If worries and

fears are not taken seriously, the situation is aggravated. And if things are being handled really badly, then

the communication stops. Every single failed project I’m aware of has had this in common: a lack of commitment from top management.

Tools for better communication

Thanks to the Travel Policy Protector, HRS

provides Travel Managers with an efficient tool

for communication. Bookers and travellers can

be provided with information through the tool,

perhaps relating to travel policies, booking chan-

nels or recent news. This leads to better-informed

employees and relieves the Travel Manager of a

time-intensive task.

Ursula Bohn, Capgemini Consult-

ing: calling for communication in

change management

27

Change Management

Atlanta has brought forth two world-famous daugh-ters: Scarlett O’Hara... and Coca-Cola. And like the city itself, both the strong-willed farmer’s daugh-ter and tough businesswoman Scarlett from "Gone

With The Wind" and the most famous soft drink in the world embody an absolute will to succeed.In addition to ambition and a desire to innovate, when Atlan-ta was selected as the Olympic city of 1996, a strong wind of change blew through the old south of the city. The city has continued to draw on the energy that pushed it to de-velop into the leading metropolis of the south following the civil war. A phoenix has adorned the city coat of arms since those days, a symbol for the resurrection of the Atlanta from the ashes and rubble of war.Today, capital city Georgia is not just the financial power-house of the south, the base for companies such as Coca Cola, CNN, Suntrust Banks and Delta Airlines, it is also one of the most important MICE destinations in the USA, with around 800 events held throughout the year. In 2015, a re-cord year for the city, there were 51 million visitors. 14 mil-lion of these were business travellers.

Southern hospitality is no myth"On the one hand, we have the infrastructure," explains Brandon Barnes of the congress office, responsible for the international market. A softer factor is just as important. "Southern hospitality is no myth. Giving people a warm wel-come is part of our culture. Visitors from abroad are often amazed at how warmly they are welcomed here." A real lo-cation advantage, since "this mood creates a productive at-mosphere for events."External factors are also a given. As the birth place of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s home with-in the conservative South, Atlanta has gained a cosmopoli-tan, positive image. With almost 95,000 hotel beds in 790 hotels, the city also has high capacity. And the infrastruc-ture is right, too. The Hartsfield Jackson International Air-port is the airport with the highest passenger numbers in the world. In 2016, 104 million passengers were handled here.On top of this, the mega-airport also offers more non-stop flights and destinations than any other in the world: 83 in-ternational destinations as well as around 200 in the USA.Quick, cost effective – 4.50 US dollars – and no traffic jams!

The big friendly giant: The biggest airport in the world, a superlative hotel and conference centre set-up and the legendary hospitality of the American south count among the trump cards of the Atlantan metropolis.

Always the real thing

TEXT: STEFANIE BISPING · PHOTOS: DAVID BARNES

28

MEETINGS & GROUPS

Travellers can zip into the heart of the city with 420,000 inhabitants, with the number rocketing to almost six million in surrounding areas. The four lines of the MARTA rail (Met-ropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) connect the city from west to east as well as north to south.

Cocktails in the aquarium, meetings with Coca ColaThere are three central areas, Downtown, Midtown and Buck-head. The latter is known as the Beverly hills of the south for its five-star hotels, chic restaurants and shopping cen-tres. The Mandarin Oriental and Ritz-Carlton are also repre-sented here, as are the Grand Hyatt and St. Regis.Midtown, with the Museum of Design and the Woodruff Arts Center – headquarters of the High Museum of Art and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s venue – is the the home of art and culture. Here the glamorous Fox Theatre can also be found, where civil war epic "Gone With The Wind" once cel-ebrated its première. This year sees it being expanded by 900 square metres.Downtown is Atlanta’s original centre and home to the ma-jor attractions and event venues. The Centennial Olympic

Park is located here, where the games were held, the Geor-gia World Convention Center, the CNN headquarters and the Georgia Aquarium.In the aquarium – the largest in the western hemisphere – conference guests can enjoy a drink in a basin surrounded by whale sharks and manta rays. The "World of Coca Cola," where the soft drink recipe rests securely in a vault, hires out its lobby and theatre for receptions and presentations.

A congress centre with Olympic dimensionsIn the nearby Center of Civil and Human Rights, which docu-ments the development of civil rights, theatres and galleries make an impressive backdrop to meetings, cocktail parties and dinners. The Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), opened in 1976 with a modest hall, is now the fourth largest in the USA, offering an area of over 360,000 square metres. The 8.5 hectare Centennial Olympic Park, College Football Hall of Fame and numerous car parks are part of the complex.But since doing nothing means no progress, the complex has just been modernised and extended for the fourth time. On 30 July, the 1.5 billion dollar Mercedes Benz Stadium is to

A great deal of green instead of red: The World Of Coca Cola is located on the fringe of Centennial Park

29

MICE Location Check

Of the times: some 11,000 exhibits of modern art are on display at the High

Museum of Art

Break in style: the façades of the Candler Building (left) and the Westin Peachtree could hardly be more different

Dance instead of film: touring

ballet ensembles and Broadway

productions in the Fox Theatre

Down the tubes: one of the six skywalks in the Peachtree Center also goes right past the Hilton and Marriott Marquis Hotel

30

MEETINGS & GROUPS

be inaugurated, seating up to 75,000 spectators and is set to replace the recently demolished Georgia Dome. At the same time, the congress centre is being bestowed with a new, glass façade.All this effort is paying off: in this neighbourhood alone, around 13,000 hotel rooms have been created – here, half a dozen hotels with more than a thousand rooms each vie for visitors to big fairs such as the Atlanta Boat Show or the Pittcon for scientific and technical innovation.

2.5 billion dollars for new hotels and projectsWith four other congress centres – the Georgia International Convention Center, located at the airport, the Cobb Galleria Centre at the intersection between interstate 285 and 75, the Atlanta Convention Center at Americas Mart downtown and the Atlanta Exposition Center, five kilometres from the airport – the city is well prepared.The Olympic motto truly still applies here. Faster, higher, stronger. The downtown development process that started with the games is far from over. Today’s flagship centre is to be further enhanced, but other areas are also set to be made more attractive.

As a result, by the end of the decade, 2.5 billion dollars will be invested in developing new hotels and entertainment complexes. The Renaissance Atlanta Airport Gateway Ho-tel has only just opened in May. The Holiday Inn Centen-nial Park is beginning a new phase of life after a twenty million-dollar renovation as the AC Hotel Atlanta Down-town; in the Candler building, there is a Curio by Hilton. Close to the Porsche Experience Center, a Solís Hotel will be built by the Capella Group, in Midtown a Hampton Inn & Suites. On top of this, by 2018, a Hard Rock Hotel, a Springhill Suites by Marriott and a Canopy by Hilton will be added to the mix. The transformation of the Peachtree Center has already begun; a downtown office, shopping and hotel complex. Six office buildings connected by skywalks, fifty restau-rants and shops and over 4000 rooms in the Hyatt Regen-cy, Hilton and Marriott Marquis Hotel are creating a city within the city. They will be equipped with technology and design fit for the 21st century. North of downtown, there is also the Suntrust Park baseball stadium and The Bat-tery entertainment district flanked by an Omni Hotel. The most famous daughters of the city would be impressed.

Not scared of heights? A trip on the giant ferris wheel gives a bird’s eye

view of downtown Atlanta

31

MICE-Standortcheck

Hotels 01 Marriott Marquis Atlanta

Featuring a new design, the larg-est hotel in the city is locat-

ed in the Peachtree Center. It boasts 1663 rooms and 84 meeting rooms, combined with almost 15,000 square metres of flexible-use event space. A 15-metre high, col-

our-changing sail greets guests in the Pulse restau-

rant in the atrium. A spa, pool and fitness centre allow for relaxation.Rooms from 104 USD.→ 265 Peachtree Center Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303

02 The Westin Peachtree Plaza AtlantaStylish hotel with 1073 rooms and 53 meeting rooms, offering space for up to 2500 participants across 7400 square me-ters of event space. A business centre, top technology and in-house meeting special-ist ensure smooth operations. The rotat-ing Sun Dial Restaurant in the 73rd floor offers magnificent views. The hotel is con-nected to the Americas Mart congress cen-tre. Rooms from 177 USD.→ 210 Peachtree St NW, Atlanta, GA 30303

03 Hyatt Regency AtlantaNewly renovated but at a classic hotspot just a few blocks from the convention cen-tre, offering 1260 rooms and suites. The hotel offers up to 16,700 square metres of meeting space with the very latest audio-visual technology. A team of meeting spe-cialists is on hand to assist with planning. Business centre, outdoor swimming pool and fitness room. Rooms from 129 USD.→ 265 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30303

04 Hilton AtlantaThis enormous hotel with 1249 rooms and suites is newly renovated. It offers mul-tiple restaurants and bars, among them the Mai Tai Bar at Trader Vic’s, where the cocktail of the same name was mixed for the very first time. 12,000 square me-tres of flexible event space, from meet-ing rooms to a 3800 square meter ball-rooms, fitness room, tennis court, catering options on the roof as well as pedestri-an bridge to the Peachtree Center Mall are further advantages of the hotel in the heart of downtown. Rooms from 134 USD.→ 255 Courtland St NE, Atlanta, GA 30303

05 Omni Atlanta HotelIn the vicinity of the CNN, the hotel of-fers 1059 rooms and direct access to the GWCC. It also has over 11,000 square me-tres of event space in 45 meeting and con-ference rooms. The largest of these is the Grand Ballroom, at 1845 square meters. Add to this a quiet side area of the lob-by, an exhibition hall and the atrium reach-ing up 15 floors in the south tower, offer-ing views of the CNN complex. Rooms from 144 USD.→ 100 CNN Center NW, Atlanta, GA 30303

06 Renaissance Atlanta Airport Gateway HotelA brand new addition to the scene with 204 rooms and seven meeting rooms, with space for ten up to 350 people, as well as the very latest audiovisual technology and high-speed internet. There is also a ball-room, terrace and a patio available for re-ceptions. Three kilometres from the airport and accessible from there by Skytrain. Rooms from 136 USD.→ 2081 Convention Center Concourse, At-lanta, GA 30337

07 Georgian Terrace HotelThe hotel, opened in 1911, is Atlanta’s grandest. Here the première of "Gone With the Wind" was celebrated. Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Enrico Caruso, Elvis Presley and Walt Disney have all stayed here. To-day it offers 326 rooms and suites, a busi-ness centre and meeting facilities for up to 250 participants in six conference rooms, a session hall and three ballrooms. For larger events, the Fox Theater opposite is recom-mended, with which the hotel collaborates. Rooms from 152 USD.→ 659 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30308

08 St. Regis AtlantaMidtown luxury: the St. Regis has 120 rooms and suites as well as event space, from an 18-person meeting room, to the terrace by the pool for a maximum of 350 guests, right up to the ballroom (a total of 16,500 square metres). A range of restau-rants offer stylish scenes for work lunches. At 6 pm daily, the Master of Ceremonies opens a bottle of champagne with a sword. Rooms from 450 USD. → 88 West Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta, GA 30305

09 AC Hotel by Marriott Atlanta Buckhead at Philips PlazaThe boutique hotel in Buckhead

opened at the end of 2016. 163 ap-propriately furnished rooms and

three suites, six small rooms (maximum eighty square metres), equipped with the latest technology for smaller meetings, training sessions or presentations. Rooms from 94 USD.→ 3600 Wieuca Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30326

Event & Special Locations 10 Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC)

The city’s largest con-gress centre offer-

ing 360,000 square meters of exhibi-tion space in twelve halls, 103 meeting rooms and two ball-

rooms.→ 285 Andrew Young

International Blvd NW, At-lanta, GA 30313, www.gwcca.org

11 Georgia International Convention Center (GICC)Atlanta’s second largest congress centre at the airport offers Georgia’s largest ball-room as well as 24,000 square metres of exhibition and meeting space. It is connect-ed with the Marriott Convention Center Hotel as well as the Spring Hill Suites; thir-ty more hotels are located in the vicinity.→ 2000 Convention Center Concourse, Col-lege Park, GA 30337, www.gicc.com

12 Cobb Galleria CentreTwenty minutes from the airport, the cen-tre offers almost 30,000 square metres on one level, in a variety of event rooms, with the latest technological equipment and in-house audiovisual technicians. Right next door is the Renaissance Waverly (522 rooms) and the Sheraton Suites Galleria (278 suites).→ Two Galleria Parkway, Atlanta, GA 30339, cobbgalleria.com

13 Atlanta Convention Center at AmericasMartA conference centre located downtown, it is connected with the Westin Peachtree Plaza and with five halls of exhibition space and 45 meeting rooms, offers space for events for up to 3000 participants. 2000 covered parking spaces and a wide range of catering options.→ 240 Peachtree Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30303, atlconventioncenter.com

14 Atlanta Expo CentersThe 15,000 square metre exhibition space in the northern section and the 19,000

MICE hotspots in Atlanta

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MEETINGS & GROUPS

square metres in the southern section of the Atlanta Expo Center are just five kilometres away from the Hartsfield Jackson Internation-al Airport. 65 hectares of parking.→ 3650 and 3850 Jonesboro Rd SE, Atlanta, GA 30354, www.atlantaexpocenter.com

15 The Woodruff Arts CenterArt forms the backdrop for meetings and events in Atlanta’s architec-turally ambitious cultural cen-tre, covering nearly 5 hec-tares. There are rooms for meetings and conferenc-es for 18 to 1800 partici-pants, as well as multiple theatres for 90 to 1800 people people. The lobby

and gallery of the concert hall and theatre are also ideally suited for receptions in a range of rooms with spectacular views. In-house res-taurant, Twelve Eighty.→ 1280 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30309, www.woodruffcenter.org

Locations mentioned

1 Hartsfield Jackson International Airport

2 Mandarin Oriental

3 Ritz-Carlton

4 Grand Hyatt

5 Museum of Design

6 Fox Theatre

7 Centennial Olympic Park

8 Georgia Aquarium

9 World of Coca Cola

10 Center of Civil and Human Rights

11 Mercedes-Benz Stadium

12 AC Hotel Atlanta Downtown

13 Candler Building

14 Suntrust Park baseball stadium

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MICE-Standortcheck

GÄSTEHAUS ST. THERESIA

ERISKIRCH

Rooms: 57 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 5 rooms | max. 40 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: unavailable

Location: Centre 8 km | Main Train Station 10 km Airport 11 km | Trade Fair 10 km

Are you looking for a location that is perfect for your conference or event? These hotels offer a wide variety and ideal settings – whether for a small seminar or a major event.

Conference HotelsSelected Conference Hotels for your Corporate Event

Rooms: 336 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 18 rooms | max. 500 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 6 km | Main Train Station 5 km Airport 3 km | Trade Fair 4 km

HOLIDAY INN BERLIN CITY-WEST

BERLIN

HOTEL IDINGSHOF

Rooms: 72 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 5 rooms | max. 150 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 1,5 km | Main Train Station 3 km Airport 45 km | Trade Fair - km

BRAMSCHE

BEST WESTERN PLUS VIER JAHRESZEITEN

DURBACH

Rooms: 95 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 10 rooms | max. 220 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 5 km | Main Train Station 5 km Airport 46 km | Trade Fair 7 km

HRS RECOMMENDS

34

Book your conference hotel now at www.hrs.com! Or contact us at +49 221 2077 300 or

email us at tagung@hrs.de

ORANGE HOTEL UND APARTMENTS

NEU-ULM

Rooms: 102 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 10 rooms | max. 200 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 0,7 km | Main Train Station 2 km Airport 47,5 km | Trade Fair 4 km

LAND-GUT-HOTEL TANNENHOF

Rooms: 50 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 3 rooms | max. 60 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 3 km | Main Train Station 4 km Airport 115 km | Trade Fair 7 km

HAIGER

HOTEL EDEN

KARLSRUHE

Rooms: 69 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 5 rooms | max. 225 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 0,8 km | Main Train Station 0,7 km Airport 35 km | Trade Fair 1,5 km

HOTEL MADERO

Rooms: 197 Wi-Fi: included

Conferences: 11 rooms | max. 250 people

Audio-visual conference equipment: available

Location: Centre 2 km | Main Train Station 4 km Airport 32 km | Trade Fair 10 km

BUENOS AIRES

35

01 Welcome to Berlin, a warm welcome to CTF 2017 – good morning

from the Westhafen Event & Convention Center (WECC).

02 Digitalisation as a game changer. Bernd Burkhardt, Head of Global

Travel Management at Daimler, on the topic of "Travel 4.0".

03 And what’s the next big thing for you? HRS CEO Tobias Ragge dur-

ing a question round with Konstantin Sixt (left) of the eponymous

car hire and other CEOs.

04 Taking a look at business travel 4.0 against a historical industry

backdrop. Listed building: the almost 100 year-old warehouse 1

in the WECC.

05 Ambitious CTF motto for 2017: "Source. Book. Pay. Stay in Con-

trol."

06 In the target: the digitalised end-to-end process. Thorsten Eicke,

Vice President for Global Mobility Services Siemens, on "Innova-

tion the Siemens Way".

07 "Europe’s future needs the global collaboration of all players!"

Keynote speaker Peer Steinbrück, former German finance minister

and candidate for chancellor.

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36

CHECK-OUT

When it’s about negotiating the future, the A-league are es-sential. That’s why HRS invited former German finance minister Peer Steinbrück to be the keynote speaker at the fifth Corporate Travel Forum, asking him to draw a

picture of "Europe’s future in a globalised world". Thorsten Eicke (Sie-mens) and Bernd Burkhardt (Daimler), two industry heavyweights also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to weigh in on their strategies and visions for sustainable travel management in front of more than 200 industry colleagues.

TEXT: ANKE PEDERSEN

PHOTOS: MICHAEL PRÖCK

Trust is good, checking is better – especially in times of digitalisation and disruption. That’s the fifth CTF event concluded that the industry is facing enormous challenges, as big/smart data, artificial intelligence and market consolidations must be as much kept in mind negotiated hotel rates, the traveller and their booking behaviour.

Stay in Control!

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Corporate Travel Forum

08 Lunch? Go on then! High time to discuss, go into detail and swap ideas.

09 The hotel range – to outsource or not to outsource. That is the ques-

tion. Presenter Anja Turner, HRS Head of Corporate Marketing, with

her colleague Sonja Klasen, HRS Head of Corporate Sourcing (left).

10 Traveller centricity equals satisfaction equals adaptation? Questions

from HRS presenter Anja Turner to Conichi CEO Max Waldmann (2nd

from left), Christian Spieker, Head of Corporate Services at ZEB (cen-

tre), Martin Biermann, CTO of HRS Innovation HUB (4th from left), and

Petar Djekic, VP Discovery at Rocket Internet.

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The keynotes were supplemented by podium discussions and panels of suppliers such as HRS, AirPlus, Sixt, DHL, I:FAO and Conichi, and it was here where the terms "digitalisation", "ar-tificial intelligence" and "predictive" dominated the debates. For example, both Siemens VP Eicke and Daimler’s Burkhardt forecast that a large part of the time-consuming process-es that a traveller must go through today, will cease to exist in the future, thanks to artificial intelligence and "predic-tive software". Their predictions? If the effort required for an employee to travel on business is minimised, then Trav-el Management can hand over more personal responsibility for the remaining decisions. By means of this compromise, the traveller will no longer make bookings that bypass the system, according to these calculations. The motto of this fifth CTF wasn’t "Stay in Control!" for noth-ing. And since this is a topic that concerns the industry world-wide, the CTF doesn’t just have a presence in Germany.

More info at www.corporate-travel-forum.com

38

CHECK-OUT

Also online:

corporate.hrs.com/int/magazin

GermanyBlaubach 32 | 50676 ColognePhone +49 221 2077-0 | Fax +49 221 2077-211office@HRS.de

HRS CUSTOMER SERVICE Phone +49 221 2077-555 | Fax +49 221 2077-219Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–6 p.m.sales@HRS.de

MEETINGS, EVENTS, GROUPS & TRADE FAIRSPhone +49 221 2077-300 | Fax +49 221 2077-661Monday–Thursday 8 a.m.–8 p.m., Friday 8 a.m.–7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.–2 p.m.tagung@HRS.de | gruppe@HRS.de

Director Sourcing SolutionsDr. Christian Temath Phone +49 221 2077-5980Christian.Temath@HRS.de

Head of Payment Solutions Christopher Hecht Phone +49 221 2077-1175Christopher.Hecht@HRS.de

Global Lead MICEOliver MayPhone +49 221 2077-1076Oliver.May@HRS.de

HRS compact

Global network | HRS is represented around the world

Feedback? Your opinion is important to us.

Your feedback. You have not yet received the free magazine and would like to register to have it sent to you? Have you feedback about this issue? Contact our editorial team: der-hotelexperte@HRS.com

São Paulo

Peking

Shanghai

London

New York Paris

Barcelona

MilanTokyo

Hong Kong

Istanbul

Moscow

Warsaw

BudapestPrague

Nuremberg

Cologne

Singapore

Sydney

Berlin

ViennaInnsbruck

Mumbai

39

Make sure you get the rate you negotiated.

HRS Rate Protector: corporate.hrs.com/int/rate-protector

Exclusively to HRS Sourcing customers: Automated audits of prices and additional services

with HRS Rate Protector, resulting in savings and relieving the Travel Management workload.

Not all negotiated corporate hotel rate is uploaded correctly into the

booking channel. A sixth of all rates differ from the values negotiated.

A global investigation by the GBTA Foundation showed:

If there is a deviation, the rate is on average 14% higher

than the price negotiated

Around half of Travel Managers perform rate audits internally and manually

40% expect their travellers to report

incorrect rates

Do you get the hotel rates that you negotiated?