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Best Western has recorded a 37% increase in conference bookings year on year for May, hotel bosses have revealed.
The hotel group, which has 280 hotels across the UK, puts the record increase down to its free internet offer across its entire hotel portfolio, and the fact that the May Bank Holiday – a traditionally difficult period for corporate bookings at hotels – has been moved to June because of the Jubilee celebrations this year.
The group has been offering free internet at all its hotels for three years and is seeing the return on that business investment increase, as business guest numbers, especially those booking Best Western Hotel space for business conferences, are rising.
Best Western Marketing Director, Tim Wade, said: “While the rest of the industry has been experiencing static conference bookings, we believe that our free internet message really has made a difference when it comes to the business market, resulting in a 37% increase in our business conference bookings, compared to the same time last year.
“Even though many other hoteliers didn’t see the value in our plan to offer free internet throughout the group, we took the risk of doing this because we firmly believed it would boost business bookings as it offers such great value for travellers. Our business guests have also reported this back to us through our regular customer feedback reports.”
Best Western business guests are committing to booking meetings and events throughout the year, suggesting a strong year for the independent hotels within the group. Almost one third of conference bookings are made two months in advance (30%), with fewer conferences (19%) booked over six months in advance. But the ‘magic window’ is booking three months in advance – accounting for 67% of all bookings.
Tim added: “Training courses are the most popular conference booking for hotels at the moment, which is a positive sign that businesses are investing in their staff. We have also seen a rise in blue chip companies returning to external conferences after a number of years of cut backs when they utilised internal space for training courses and meetings.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
