Siemens wants to save 500 million in travel expenses

And many think digitalization does not affect the hotel industry

Siemens is one of the largest travel and hotel booking companies in Germany. According to the company information, it spends 1.8 billion euros on travel services. From next year, already half a billion of travel costs will be saved according to various newspapers and news services, among others by http://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/id_82603528/siemens-will-kraeftig-bei-reisekosten-spareompanyn.html

For the hotel industry, it is not good news, but an expected one. Siemens demands from its employees numerous traveling, caused by internal corporate meetings, to be replaced by telephone and video conferences. A trend that is not only seen in Siemens.

The result will be a rapidly declining business travel volume, whether we like it or not. It will turn an industry properly upside down, that only knows growth for the last eight years and is currently strongly investing in new hotels. Adding to the problems of a shortage of skilled workers, there are also, the challenges of declining numbers of overnight stays. These may have an effect above all, on the meetings and the business overnight stays. It is difficult to dare to forecast, whether, for example, privately organized traveling will make up for the lack of bookings.

But how should the hospitality industry deal with this development? The handling of these issues could initiate important decisions:

How can we reduce the dependency on the business travel market (if it exists)?
Which other segments can be developed, what measures are required?
What types of meetings cannot be easily replaced with video conferences? How can we specialize in them?
How can we become overall more efficient and reduce the high overheads?
How do we develop attractiveness in times, when the demand is declining?

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