Keeping a major railroad's lodging expenses on the right track.
At first glance, you might think managing lodging requirements would come easily for a major railroad. After all, it already has an established network of locations across North America and the means to get its travelers there.
But even sophisticated railroad companies can benefit from CLC's customized lodging program. That's certainly been the case for one particular CLC customer.
Prior to 1988, this company handled most of its lodging requirements in-house or through a traditional travel agency. With tens of thousands employees deployed across the United States, the task of making travel arrangements was an enormous burden on the company's purchasing, operations and travel management administrators. Not only were they responsible for negotiating contracts with thousands of hotels across the country, but they also had to balance the quality requirements of multiple unions - all within established budgetary goals.
The railroad's management was constantly faced with the dilemma of establishing guaranteed room blocks to assure availability for crews while minimizing the number of rooms that went unused.
By any standard, the company did a good job on its own of managing these factors. But, it wanted more. So, this railroad turned to Corporate Lodging Consultants. By incorporating CLC into its purchasing, finance, operations and travel departments, the company gained access to resources that it could never have had otherwise. And it discovered a way to truly maximize the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of its lodging program.
Corporate Lodging Consultants quickly developed a customized lodging program for this client. The new plan promised to not only reduce its expenses, but to increase the speed at which lodging data was acquired to minimize accruals and improve the speed of operational decisions.
The railroad rolled out the plan across its entire company, making CLC responsible for the lodging of virtually every train and engine crew member, maintenance of way employee, manager and administrator. And things have never been easier.
Corporate Lodging Consultants has negotiated and maintained hotel rates below customer-defined limits. Through constant traveler feedback, hotel inspections and coordination with the company's decision makers, CLC has achieved a balance between employee preferences and budgetary constraints. Through constant communication and room-demand modeling, CLC has lowered the amount spent on unused rooms while maintaining availability. And CLC installed a variety of lodging-specific electronic point-of-sale devices into hotels, so that nearly all transactions are received in real-time with extended data.
Corporate Lodging Consultants has raised the visibility of lodging expenses within the company's management and helped them make more informed decisions. The program has been such a great success - it's even helped the railroad reduce agency manual-booking expenses by enabling the company to implement an online booking system.
Through years of cooperation and understanding, Corporate Lodging Consultants has helped this major railroad save millions of dollars and realize new administrative efficiencies. It's a strong relationship that's still moving full steam ahead.