How Overseas Hotels and Serviced Apartments Can Win Indian Corporate Travellers

Indian companies send people abroad constantly: consultants to client sites, engineers to project launches, managers on secondment, employees relocating with their families. For a hotel or serviced apartment in London, Frankfurt or Singapore, these are valuable guests. They travel on company budgets, they often stay longer than a leisure guest, and the same company sends the next traveller to the same city a few weeks later.

The difficulty for a property outside India is reach. Most of these trips are never booked by the traveller alone, which means the property that wins them is rarely the one with the best listing. It is the one the company’s travel partner already knows, because it holds a direct contract with a travel management company.

How these bookings are actually made

A large Indian company does not let every employee book wherever they like. It writes a travel policy that sets budgets, preferred suppliers and approval rules, and it hands the work to a travel management company. That company books through a managed desk, through a self-booking platform the employees use themselves, or through both.

At CWS, for example, a trip reaches a property in one of two ways: our desk books it on the traveller’s behalf, or the employee books it on Travgenie, our corporate self-booking platform, within their company’s policy. In both cases, the options the traveller sees are shaped by the properties we have relationships with.

So the question for an overseas property is not how to get Indian travellers to find you. It is how to be one of the properties their travel company offers.

What a travel management company looks for

Location that matches the work. Corporate travellers go where the offices, client sites and project locations are. A property ten minutes from a business district will usually beat a better-rated one across town.

Stays that work for weeks. Project and relocation travellers need a kitchen, laundry, a proper desk and reliable internet. Serviced apartments win much of this business because a hotel room is hard to live in for a month.

Predictable terms. A travel company commits its clients to your property. It needs rates, cancellation rules and availability that hold, so it can quote with confidence.

Clear billing. Corporate travel runs on invoices that a finance team can reconcile. Properties that bill accurately and on time are easier to keep sending people to.

Responsiveness. When a flight is delayed or a project is extended, the travel company needs a person at the property who answers.

Why a direct contract beats waiting to be found

Online travel agencies give a property visibility, but visibility is not the same as being chosen. A corporate traveller booking within policy sees a shortlist, and that shortlist comes from the travel company’s own relationships.

A direct contract changes your position. Instead of hoping a traveller scrolls to your listing, a team that books thousands of corporate stays is actively offering your property to the companies it serves. You agree the rate and terms once, and the bookings follow the travel patterns of those companies.

It also removes layers. Every intermediary between your property and the guest takes margin and adds a step where information can be lost.

You do not need an office in India

Many overseas properties assume that winning Indian corporate business means hiring sales staff in Mumbai or Bengaluru. It does not. A travel management company based in India already sells to those companies every day. Partnering with one gives you that reach without the cost of building it.

Where to start

If you run a hotel, serviced apartment or aparthotel and want to host corporate travellers from India, the simplest first step is a conversation. CWS has placed travellers from 150+ corporate clients across 185+ countries since 2016, and we are expanding the properties we contract with directly.

Tell us about your property on our partnerships page, and our team in Mumbai will be in touch.