Challenge
A large, global company headquartered in the UK was looking for an innovative price optimization solution to increase savings on its air and hotel spend. The customer’s procurement team identified three suppliers to participate in a Request for Information (RFI), including two specialized price assurance technology providers and CWT, its trusted TMC partner for more than 20 years.
Solution
Following a comprehensive audit, the customer selected our price optimization service citing several benefits:
- Bigger savings: Using artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics, it monitors bookings made by a company’s travelers and pinpoints the ideal time to issue flight tickets. After a flight has been ticketed or a hotel reservation has been made, it continues to search for price drops and automatically rebooks if a better airfare or hotel rate is found, while factoring in any change and cancellation fees and ensuring compliance with suppliers’ rules and regulations. An analysis by the customer found that the projected airfare savings from our solution were higher than those from the two competing providers.
- Turnkey solution with no disruption for travelers: The solution is integrated into all of CWT’s booking channels, has minimal set-up and maintenance requirements, and our dedicated price optimization team makes sure that every savings alert yields net savings without compromising the traveler experience.
- Integrated with CWT’s reporting solution: A customized, interactive dashboard within our Analytics business intelligence and reporting tool allows the customer to monitor incremental savings in real time.
Results
- The audit confirmed projected air savings through our price optimization solution, to be significantly higher than our competitors.
- In a six-month period, the customer has achieved a combined saving of $410k for both air and hotel spend.
- This represented a 2% savings on air spend alone, including both pre- and post-ticket values.
“The decision was easy. We are delighted with the performance of CWT’s solution and are on track to achieve the projected annual savings. It was crucial to ensure alignment with our finance team, confirming that the savings represent genuine business savings, not just cost avoidance.”
Travel Manager – Professional services company