Business travel is back – are hoteliers ready?

One of the quieter economic trends of 2023 was the beginning of a robust return to business travel. Global business travel spending, which nearly doubled in 2022, has continued its momentum. In 2024 we should see travel spending levels climbing toward new highs.

What can an entrepreneurial hotel operator do to optimize returns on this market expansion, protect their networks from cyberthreats — and prevent losing business to other hoteliers with similar ambitions?

The hiatus is over

For the first time since 2019, business travel spending worldwide exceeded $1 trillion in 2022, an increase of 47% from the year before. Hotel Business expects that spike to continue, forecasting business travel spend will reach $1.8 billion by 2027.

Reasons for this continued boom include an easing of longtime fears of a deep national recession; a loosening of years-long restrictions on business travel to capture opportunities for growth and relationship-building; and the re-emergence of trade shows and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) as nexus points for corporate planning.

More business travel obviously translates into more guest bookings for hospitality enterprises, and a steadier income stream. Yet the potential revenue lift can be even more. Business travelers tend to spend more than vacationers, in part because many hotel amenities are purchased as business expenses. This in turn rewards those hoteliers who prioritize quality over budget.

According to a recent U.S. Travel Association report, an increasing share of corporate executives expect the same or more business travel spending in the near future. Eight in ten business travelers expect to travel to attend conferences, conventions or trade shows in the next six months.

Building on bleisure opportunities

Today’s business travelers are different from what they were in the 2010s. One key difference: a deeper desire to enjoy their time away by combining work with a chance to relax and experience the places they visit. 

Since 2022, this so-called “bleisure” trend has been cultivated by entrepreneurial hotel operators who accommodate their guests’ eagerness to break out of their work bubbles. It is estimated that around 40% of business travelers extend their business trips for leisure purposes, with millennials being the most likely (48%) to do so.

As bleisure travelers tend to stay in the same hotel for both types of activities, savvy hoteliers are finding ways to make these visits more pleasant for their guests and profitable for themselves. New booking engines and special rate packages are designed specifically around accommodating bleisure travel.

Hotels are also investing in concierge and tour services which can minimize the extra trouble a busy business traveler will experience in adding bleisure elements to their stay. When correctly introduced, such services can create ancillary revenue streams that flow back to the hospitality enterprise.

Protection is paramount

The need for hoteliers to protect against cybercrime cannot be overstated. Hotels are repositories of personal identifiable information (PII), including credit card numbers. To protect such critical data, cybersecurity protections should be designed to work with a hotel’s network and co-managed with a trustworthy partner, both to counter breaches and minimize their potential damage.

For business travelers, concern over cybersecurity is especially pressing as the threat concerns not only themselves but their employers. While cybersecurity investments might not reap immediate positive returns, they help protect the many other investments hotels do make to enhance guest experience — as well as the guests themselves.

Managed security solutions can help hospitality IT staff deal with the myriad of challenges protecting hotels from cyberattack, whether it be a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, ransomware or breaches aimed at cloud-stored data.

Securing your future with infrastructure 

The ability to accommodate business travelers starts and ends with infrastructure ready to meet and greet them long before they check in. Having the right network for high-performing, high-demanding business travelers requires a holistic strategy that integrates multiple parts. 

Many hotels are modernizing guest experiences with smart hotel rooms, which leverage Big Data and the Internet of Things to facilitate higher levels of personalization and efficiency. These innovations offer big advantages for the business traveler as well, allowing them to conduct more business from their rooms and in other hotel locations. This in turn offers points of meaningful differentiation for dedicated hoteliers.

At the core of any successful modern hotel is a property management system [PMS] that makes guest experience as seamless as possible. For business travelers especially, the right PMS should integrate with a flexible, easy-to-use voice communications system that prioritizes prompt responses while also keeping hotel employees in contact wherever they are. This helps especially when it comes to making hotel operations more efficient, a key to attracting and maximizing revenue from business travel guests.

A modern voice system should form part of a well-integrated connectivity network that provides ample bandwidth and resilience. Choosing the right managed services provider to service these needs is essential to ensuring your hotel has the needed support to make it a preferred destination among business travelers.

Winning with WiFi

One critical component of any discussion around networking solutions must be WiFi. While recreational tourists want premium video services and lavish food and beverage options, business travelers have come to expect – and even demand – connectivity that is always ready when they are.

According to a recent survey by Hotel Management, over half of hotel operators (51.6%) list slow, unreliable WiFi as the chief complaint they hear from guests. At the bottom of the same list is complimentary WiFi, indicating cost is not nearly as much of an issue as convenience.

While it may be true that the best WiFi service is seldom noticed by those who use it, poor WiFi can be the downfall of any hotel operator who does everything else right for their business guests. Having the right networking solution in place requires the right technology partner, ready to work with you to ensure your hotel’s WiFi service exceeds expectations while simplifying operations.

Taking care of business

Making a hotel more of a draw for business travelers requires a lot of planning and commitment from hospitality leaders. Capturing their business requires a unique outlook and a commitment to innovation, but the rewards can be enormous, particularly as the business-travel market is expected to continue growing for some time to come. With the right network and technology partner in place, your hotel can be ready to seize this growth early and be a preferred destination for these valuable customers. 

How can your hotel attract more business travelers and create a more satisfying guest experience? Learn how you can build on your future success with Spectrum Enterprise solutions.