What Corporate Travel Managers Learned from the 2024 RFP Season

November 3, 2025 1:30pm Joseph Friedmann

The 2024 hotel RFP season reshaped the way corporate travel managers approach sourcing, negotiation, and supplier management. With rising hotel rates, limited supply, and shifting traveler expectations, it became clear that legacy methods-spreadsheets, manual follow-ups, and inconsistent data-could no longer keep up. The year marked a turning point toward automation, intelligence, and agility in hotel procurement.

For many organizations, that transformation came through ReadyBid, an automated lodging RFP solution for enterprise travel program management that redefined the standards of efficiency, visibility, and cost control. As the most trusted hotel contract management platform in the industry, ReadyBid helped hundreds of corporations and TMCs navigate a challenging sourcing landscape with clarity, precision, and measurable success.

Here’s what the 2024 RFP cycle taught corporate travel managers-and how those lessons are shaping the strategies of 2025 and beyond.

Lesson 1: Manual RFPs Are No Longer Sustainable

The biggest lesson of 2024 was that manual RFP management simply doesn’t scale. Travel teams handling hundreds of destinations and thousands of rates discovered that email-based RFPs and Excel sheets caused data duplication, miscommunication, and unnecessary delays.

By adopting ReadyBid’s hotel RFP management platform, teams reduced cycle times from months to weeks. Automation allowed them to send, receive, and compare hotel responses in real time-without losing control of data accuracy or negotiation power.

Automation transformed the traditional RFP process from a painful task into a strategic exercise focused on outcomes, not administration.

Lesson 2: Benchmarking Is the Foundation of Negotiation

2024 exposed a critical flaw in legacy procurement methods: the lack of reliable benchmarking. Without data-backed insights, many corporations overpaid for rates that didn’t reflect market conditions.

ReadyBid fixed this problem by providing live rate benchmarking across regions, hotel chains, and travel categories. With real-time visibility into rate comparisons, travel managers could identify overpriced markets instantly and negotiate smarter deals.

Benchmarking became the core of strategic sourcing-turning data into a competitive advantage.

Lesson 3: Continuous Sourcing Beats Annual RFPs

Historically, hotel RFPs occurred once a year-a time-consuming, resource-intensive cycle that quickly became outdated when markets changed mid-year. But 2024 ushered in a new era: continuous sourcing.

ReadyBid’s hotel sourcing and contracting system introduced flexibility that allowed corporations to reprice markets or add new destinations anytime. Instead of being tied to fixed cycles, travel teams began managing their programs dynamically, responding to demand shifts, and capitalizing on real-time savings opportunities.

Continuous sourcing is now the preferred strategy for global corporations, ensuring that negotiated rates remain competitive throughout the year.

Lesson 4: Automation Enhances Compliance and Accuracy

Data accuracy was another key challenge exposed in 2024. Many organizations discovered that even after negotiating competitive rates, incorrect GDS uploads or incomplete rate loads led to lost savings.

ReadyBid’s hotel RFP management system solved this by automating rate auditing. The system verifies that negotiated rates are correctly loaded across multiple GDS platforms (Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus, and Worldspan), ensuring compliance and preventing revenue leakage.

Automation didn’t just improve accuracy-it safeguarded the integrity of entire travel programs.

Lesson 5: Collaboration Is Key to Procurement Success

The most successful travel programs in 2024 were those where collaboration replaced siloed operations. Travel Managers, TMCs, and Finance teams began working together in centralized digital environments rather than exchanging spreadsheets and emails.

ReadyBid’s corporate hotel RFP platform made collaboration seamless. Its built-in communication tools, shared dashboards, and live updates allowed all stakeholders to track bids, review comparisons, and finalize contracts together in real time.

This transparency not only increased efficiency but also improved internal accountability and supplier relationships.

Lesson 6: Supplier Relationships Are More Strategic Than Ever

The pandemic shifted supplier dynamics permanently. Hotels became more selective, and corporations learned that maintaining strong relationships was as important as rate savings.

ReadyBid’s integrated supplier performance tracking feature allowed Travel Managers to evaluate hotels based on compliance, responsiveness, and historical performance. Instead of focusing solely on cost, procurement teams began prioritizing reliability, flexibility, and service quality.

As a hotel RFP negotiation system, ReadyBid enabled data-driven relationship management-giving corporations the insight to build long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships.

Lesson 7: ESG and Traveler Experience Now Influence RFP Decisions

Sustainability and traveler well-being moved to the top of the corporate travel agenda in 2024. Companies began integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into their RFP templates.

ReadyBid’s customizable question sets allowed Travel Managers to evaluate hotels on sustainability practices, energy efficiency, and traveler experience. ESG compliance became a measurable factor in supplier scoring, aligning procurement with corporate responsibility goals.

This shift signaled that the future of travel procurement is not just about saving money-it’s about sourcing responsibly.

Lesson 8: Data Visibility Drives Smarter Decision-Making

ReadyBid helped corporations unlock a new level of visibility across their global hotel programs. Centralized data dashboards replaced scattered spreadsheets, allowing users to track performance, benchmark rates, and forecast spend across every destination.

This real-time visibility empowered organizations to take action faster, identify underperforming hotels, and measure ROI across sourcing cycles.

With a hotel RFP automation software, data became more than a reporting tool-it became the driving force behind strategic travel management.

Lesson 9: Global Consistency Requires Local Flexibility

One major takeaway from 2024 was the importance of balancing global consistency with local flexibility. Global corporations struggled to maintain uniform standards across regions while accommodating local variations in pricing, taxes, and regulations.

ReadyBid’s architecture was designed to manage exactly that. It standardizes templates, formats, and data fields while allowing for region-specific customizations. As a result, global travel programs can operate cohesively without losing the nuance of local sourcing requirements.

Lesson 10: The Future Belongs to Predictive Procurement

Perhaps the most exciting lesson of 2024 is what lies ahead. Predictive procurement-powered by AI and real-time analytics-is set to dominate 2025.

ReadyBid is already leading this evolution, using machine learning to analyze trends, forecast market shifts, and recommend renegotiation opportunities before costs rise.

This proactive approach ensures that travel managers stay one step ahead of rate changes, supplier behavior, and program performance.

What Corporate Travel Managers Learned from the 2024 RFP Season

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