Amex GBT has already told your corporate buyers what your 2027 rate increase should be
In Madrid it's somewhere between 6.1% and 9.2%. The biggest corporate travel agency has told buyers to plan on the low end, and they'll have read it before they answer your RFP.
by Markus Busch
Your buyer already has a number. Your biggest corporate account is about to answer your 2027 rate. There's a good chance its travel manager has already seen one number.
On September 22, American Express Global Business Travel, the largest corporate travel agency in the world, published its forecast of what hotel rates should do next year, city by city. For Madrid, it says rates will rise between 6.1% and 9.2%. London, 3.6% to 5.4%. Paris, 3.1% to 4.8%.
Then it tells the buyer which end to use. The low end, if the war in the Middle East drags on or if inflation stays where it is. The war hasn't ended.
Who sends you the RFP. Plenty of companies don't run their own hotel negotiations. This spring GBTA, the business travel association, asked corporate travel managers how they handle it. More than half hand at least part of the job to a travel agency or a consultant. In Europe, nearly two in three.
Sometimes that agency is Amex GBT itself, which counts more than 1,900 companies as clients. So the person reading the forecast is often the person writing to you.
Six euros a night. Say your Madrid hotel sells an account at €200 this year. At the low end of the forecast, next year's rate is €212. At the high end, €218.
Six euros, on every room night that account books in 2027. For an account worth 1,000 nights a year, that's €6,000 you either keep or give away. The buyer has the lower number in writing, from the biggest name in corporate travel.
What the forecast leaves out. It covers the rate and nothing else. Not the breakfast inside it, the cancellation terms, a late check-out, a meeting room thrown in to close last year's deal.
Amex GBT says so itself. Its consulting director, Sara Andell, says price doesn't always tell the whole story, and the company tells buyers to weigh what they get from their hotel spend beyond the headline rate.
The Monday check. Find your city in the forecast. Expect every account to offer you the low number. Before they call, get three things ready: how full you were on the nights they stayed, what they paid you in past years, and a list of everything already in their rate. If the rate won't move, change what's in it.
Your 2027 corporate rates are still being negotiated. The number they'll be measured against has been public since September 22.
Read also: Corporate travel is growing on rate, not on travelers
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