Hotelscene’s Hotel booking solution for Smith & Nephew

A genuine partnership in business travel.

“Hotelscene has won over our travellers through delivering excellent service and significant pound-savings to the bottom line.”
Nicola Spence
Commercial Manager, Travel, Smith & Nephew

Smith & Nephew is a global medical devices company employing some 8,800 staff.

By 2001 the UK business recognised that there were clear opportunities to enhance their hotel programme. Reservations were routinely made both by the agent and direct with hotels, the Company did not have visibility over its activities, could not predict volumes and was not able to take full advantage of its purchasing strength.

The company recognised there were significant opportunities to reduce the cost of travel

Why Smith & Nephew chose Hotelscene
Smith & Western’s new Commercial Manager-Travel concluded that a focused consolidation process needed to be adopted.

“In our experience, general business travel agencies just bolt on hotel bookings as an afterthought,” she says. “Their approach is ‘…and you’ll need a hotel as well’.

She knew that hotel programme management is highly specialised and complex. It requires detailed know-how on a range of issues from cancellation clauses for conference bookings, to dealing with a mixture of commissionable and non-commissionable rates. Above all, it is harder to ferret out reliable management information than it is for air.

Smith & Nephew appointed Hotelscene and in April 2003 introduced Corporate Xtranet, our online booking tool.

Compliance
Adoption rate was over 60% within the first few months. “We are extremely pleased with CorporateXtranet” says Nicola Spence. “The transaction costs are lower and it gives us even better control over our programme.”

“‘We now have very good compliance, with strong policies in place,” says Ms Spence. “Hotelscene has won over our travellers through delivering excellent service and significant pound-savings to the bottom line.”

In the six months following the introduction of Corporate Xtranet Smith & Western found only one traveller who had booked a hotel without making the reservation through Hotelscene.

Savings
The beauty of gaining such excellent compliance is that Smith & Nephew can now track the totality of its hotel expenditure with much greater precision. “Hotelscene gives me excellent management information. That puts the Company in a very strong negotiating position when dealing with hotel suppliers,” says Nicola Spence.

In fact Hotelscene was able to quickly improve the average hotel rate paid by more than 10%.

‘Our relationship with Hotelscene is a genuine partnership. Hotelscene really strives to understand our corporate culture and there is commitment from both parties.’ – Nicola Spence.

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Hotelscene’s Hotel booking solution for Smith & Nephew