As hotel costs have risen in recent years, some companies are asking their employees to share hotel rooms to save money while traveling.

By JOE SHARKEY


In the summer of 2000, corporate travel departments were nervous about soaring airfares and hotel costs. Mark L.Walton, a travel policy consultant, gave a well-received talk during a seminar at the National Business Travel Association convention in Los Angeles.

Mr.Walton read a parody memorandum supposedly announcing new rules from the corporate travel department. Air travel was to be severely limited, the joke memo said. Instead, it said,“hitchhiking is strictly encouraged,” though employees hitching rides would receive “luminescent safety vests” for nighttime travel.

Also, the memo said, “All employees are encouraged to stay with relatives and friends while on company business.”

Everybody thought this was hilarious - the hitchhiking and the idea that a proud, hard-charging traveler might end up not in a nice Hilton but instead sleeping on a cousin’s couch. The joke was on the corporate travel managers.

During a recent telephone conference held by American Express Business Travel, the corporate travel management subsidiary of American Express, Frank Schnur, a vice president of the company’s Global Advisory Services, said that some corporate travel managers are actually making some of those suggestions.

“Another one of the things we’re seeing companies ask their employees to do is stay with friends and families when traveling,” Mr.Schnur said.“Or stay together, share hotel rooms, to avoid additional costs.”He was listing some of the ways that corporate travel managers are now trimming costs by as much as 30 percent, while still having employees “travel the same amount.”

Mr.Walton said that staying with friends and relatives, if not actually willingly sharing a hotel room with a coworker “might be an option some people think of”when left to their own discretion to decide how to reduce travel costs. Hotel costs have risen so much in recent years that lodging exceeds air transportation at some companies as a percentage of overall travel spending, he said.

The American Express forecast generally predicted slower growth and, in some cases, a reduction, in airfares and hotel rates next year.
But there was no indication of an end to the proliferation of airline fees, which are not counted in the fare .

Airlines are seeing at least a shortterm “bonanza” from oil prices that have dropped below $70 a barrel, Mr.Walton said.

One can only speculate whether that, coupled with a decrease in travel caused by a poor economy, will translate into airfare reductions.

“Both suppliers and buyers of travel and travel-related services are expected to face new operating challenges in the coming year,” the American Express forecast said.

So reality imitates parody?
“It’s all a function of the marketplace,”Mr.Walton said.