The ACTE and NBTA Hotel Folio Data Task Force was established in December, 1996 to work toward the development of a universal reporting standard that will enable charge card companies to report full hotel spending information in an electronic format. The task force surveyed the members of both associations to determine what hotel folio information is most important and useful to them. Those surveyed were corporate travel managers, purchasing managers and finance managers -- travel supplier and other member categories were not surveyed.

The survey was mailed to the travel purchasing members of ACTE and NBTA on April 1. Responses were obtained through May 2 using Marriott's dial-in Confer-Net facility.

There were 279 responses to the survey out of a possible 1,700 -- a 16.4% response rate.

Characteristics of the Respondents:

Travel managers represented approximately 78% of the responses. Their responsibilities include:

• Setting corporate travel policies
• Managing business travel costs
• Selecting suppliers and Corporate card programs

Characteristic of the Companies:

• The top four industry categories were manufacturing, followed by financial services, computer and mining/ chemicals.
• 48% had 10,000 or more employees
• 56% had revenues in excess on $1B
• The average annual T&E; expenditure is between $10 - 50 million
• 33% of the respondents reported annual room nights of over 25,000
• Approximately 85% have corporate card programs
• Less than 20% perform expense reporting automation. The expectation is that 89% will automate within one year.
• 67% report that they would use hotel folio data to pre-populate expense reports

At what level do you want to see the various charge amounts?
-56.4% want to see detail

Would a hotel that provides standardized folio data have an advantage in gaining your company's' business over a hotel that does not provide the information -- all other things being equal?

- 74% would favor hotels that provide hotel folio data; however they would not pay for the additional data.

Ranking of Hotel Folio Data Fields:

The respondents to the survey were asked to rank the importance of 28 fields of hotel folio data. The following indicates the percentage of respondents ranking the field as "very important" or "somewhat important", listed in descending order.

Field	% Ranking Very or Somewhat Important
Room tax field			96%
Total of all charges during stay			93.8
Arrival date			93
Number of nights			92.7
Departure date			91.6
Room charge			91.5
Guest field			91.1
Restaurant/ room service charges			88.8
Telephone calls			87.5
Property address			87.4
Cardholder name			86.4
Business center charges			82.9
Card type			81.9
After check-out charges			79.8
Valet parking			76.5
Laundry/ dry cleaning			74.8
Card number			74.8
Property telephone number			73.9
Health club charges			72.1
Number of free nights			71.7
Bar-mini bar charges			68.7
Movie charges			67.3
Gift shop charges			59.4
Reservation number			47.3
800 field number			43.5
Folio number			34.4
Card expiration			31.1
Room number			17.1

Conclusions:

Room nights and rates are considered the most important folio information

Companies are automating expense reporting.

Automation makes the management and usefulness of detailed information more realistic.

Increased automation also leads to increased demand for folio data in an electronic format.