Far fewer corporates have a strategic approach to venue sourcing for meetings and events than they do for transient travel, according to new research from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and Cvent.

A March survey of 278 corporate travel buyers, meeting planners and hotel professionals across Europe, the US and Canada revealed that only 37 per cent of corporates have a defined sourcing process for all or most meetings.

A further 17 per cent of companies employ a strategic approach to sourcing for ¡°some¡± meetings and 12 per cent have procurement strategies in place for ¡°a few¡± meetings. About a third (34 per cent) do not have any formal sourcing processes in place for meetings.

Among corporates with a meetings programme in place, 32 per cent reported having a well-developed programme, while 41 per cent indicated that only some aspects are managed, acknowledging gaps and room for improvement.

While just over half (52 per cent) conduct RFPs to source venues, 55 per cent negotiate informally with venues and a further 15 per cent take a ¡°click and book¡± approach. Just over a third (37 per cent) of companies use an online tool to conduct RFPs for all or most meetings. Forty-five per cent never use such tools.

Unlike group bookings, corporates take a more strategic approach to transient hotel sourcing. According to the survey, 91 per cent of buyers negotiate directly with hotels. Of those, 47 per cent negotiate exclusively through RFPs, 16 per cent combine formal and informal methods, and 36 per cent negotiate outside of the formal RFP process entirely.

According to the research, informal negotiations are largely conducted by smaller organisations with fewer than 5,000 employees. Sixty-nine per cent of these firms negotiate with hotels entirely outside of an RFP process, in contrast to only 22 per cent of mid-sized companies (with between 5,001 and 20,000 employees) and 19 per cent of larger companies (with more than 20,000 employees).

Informal negotiations for transient hotel sourcing are also less common in Europe, where more than half of buyers (55 per cent) said their company exclusively negotiates with hotels through RFPs.?

Hotel sourcing for transient travel continues to focus on discounts, with 79 per cent of survey respondents saying they ¡°always or often¡± negotiate fixed rates at the individual property level, while a further 64 per cent seek out chain-wide discounts and 47 per cent include property-level dynamic discounts.

Most corporates (69 per cent) with a managed hotel programme for transient travel said they ¡°always or often¡± benchmark discounts against market rates to ensure they offer savings, while 60 per cent always or often conduct rate audits to check discounts are properly applied and made available.?A further 52 per cent always or often use technology for rate reshopping.