How to Negotiate Hotel Rates in 2027 Across Transient Travel and Meetings
Hotel rates are still rising, just not as quickly as they have in recent years. The 2027 Global Business Travel Forecast from GBTA and ALTOUR projects global hotel rate growth of 1.8% next year, down from 3.7% in 2026. While that moderation creates opportunities for smarter negotiations, average market data rarely reflects what buyers actually experience in individual cities and travel periods.
In our recent webinar with GBTA, Nina Marcello, ALTOUR’s Senior Director of Hotel Content Sourcing and Adoption, and economist Dr. Shawn DuBravac of the Avrio Institute walked through what the forecast means for hotel programs. The conversation starts with the overall forecast results, giving market context, through to the negotiation tactics travel managers tell us work, and closes with how it all applies to meetings and events.
What the 2027 business travel pricing forecast says about hotel pricing
Slower growth in 2027 doesn’t take prices back to 2025 levels. Labor, sustainability mandates, and other structural costs have become embedded in suppliers’ cost structures, so your starting point for next year is what you paid this year.
The global figure also hides wide regional gaps. The forecast has North America at 1.5% hotel rate growth in 2027, Latin America at 5.2%, Asia Pacific at 2.1% and EMEA is a flat rate. Shawn pointed out that Latin America’s figures likely understate local reality, because local-currency inflation and nearshoring demand get softened when converted back to US dollars.
Hotels in North America are still emptier than they were before the pandemic, yet the average price of a room keeps hitting new highs. Lower annual room night volume won’t automatically get you a cheaper rate or a better deal. Check whether hotels in the cities you use really do have lower occupancy and use that in your negotiations where they do.
Your market is a city and a date
The webinar’s city data made this point clearly. London and Doha are in the same region, yet their hotel prices moved in different directions. Doha’s prices dropped sharply in the spring, while London stayed busy and with consistent pricing all year, as it usually does. New York spiked sharply at the end of 2025, a pattern Nina called before seeing the data, because November and December are always the city’s highest occupancy and priciest months.
Prices can even shift by area. Shawn described finding Midtown rates at double what he’d paid a few weeks earlier, and switching to Hell’s Kitchen or SoHo instead. Travellers willing to stay a little outside their usual area can find real savings.
Small supply changes move markets as well. Nina shared an example from one of her clients. When the client asked hotels in one city to quote new rates, prices jumped. The reason was that a large budget hotel in the city had closed, and no new hotel was due to open that year. With fewer rooms to go around, the remaining hotels could charge more. The travel manager moved some meetings and day events to another company office where costs were lower, and his company praised them for spotting the problem early.
Hotel negotiation strategies for 2027
Attach an action to every market signal
Keeping an eye on the market only helps if you act on what you see. The travel programs we see doing well have a plan for each change. When a new hotel opens in a city you use often, check whether it belongs on your list of preferred hotels. When hotels are filling up and prices are climbing, update your spending limits for that city and ask travelers to book earlier. When a big event or busy season is coming, consider moving your meeting or line up backup options. And if travelers can’t book the rates you agreed with a hotel, find out why.
Focus effort where pressure meets exposure
Travel managers tell us there’s always more to do than time allows. Shawn and Nina suggested a simple way to prioritize. Plot the cities your travelers visited last year on a grid. One side shows how much pressure the local hotel market is under, such as rising prices or few rooms available. The other side shows how much your company relies on that city.
Where the market is busy and you send lots of travelers, book early and widen your choice of hotels. Where the market is calmer, but you still send lots of travelers, ask hotels for fresh quotes and test their rates, terms and value. In cities you visit less often, keep things simple and have backup options ready for busy periods.
How much you rely on a city goes beyond the number of nights you book or what you spend there. A few trips that can’t change date or destination, such as a client visit tied to a contract deadline, may need more of your attention than a high volume of flexible trips.
Protect your negotiated rates with compliance
Even the best negotiated rate delivers nothing if travelers don’t book it. Nina gave an example of a client with deals at six hotels in one city, whose travelers were staying at 19 or 20 different hotels. That lack of policy enforcement cost the company $40,000 in one city last year.
The fix starts with a travel program people are happy to use. If your policy is too strict, people book outside it. When that happens, you lose spending you could use in negotiations, the data you need for reports, and the ability to find and support travelers in an emergency (Duty of Care). Explaining clearly why the program exists, matters as much as the rates themselves.
Localize rate caps by city and season
One nightly spending limit for every city doesn’t work. In some cities, one limit for the whole year doesn’t work either. Nina’s example was New York, where a limit of $400 to $500 a night in November and December is what it takes to find a room when the city is packed. Keep that same limit in February and March, and you’ll pay more than you need to when prices and occupancy typically fall.
The programs that work best keep the core rules the same everywhere and let the details change by city and season. Keep your approval process, communication and reporting consistent. Adjust spending limits, preferred hotels and booking advice to suit each city, and update your booking tool before you share the policy. If the rates you’ve agreed with hotels are higher than your spending limits, change the limits or find different hotels to get the best rates.
Match the tactic to the market
The same contract approach won’t work in a busy market and a quiet one. Where rooms are hard to find, book your most important dates early, keep backup hotels in your program and give hotels a realistic picture of how much you’ll book. Where hotels are keen for business, ask for fresh quotes, push for extras, like breakfast, guaranteed rooms and flexible terms, and consider longer deals where the terms suit you.
The cheapest quote isn’t always the best choice. Shawn described hotel buying as a way to manage risk. In cities where rooms are scarce, booking early gives you certainty, which can be worth more than a lower price.
Know who travels to each market
Nina has seen a trend among North American travel managers, where they are removing extras like breakfast to get lower hotel rates. That works for domestic travelers who have a daily meal allowance. However, a traveler from a country within the same company that may have a different travel policy or per diem, with a lower allowance might save $10 on the room, then pay $30 for breakfast they can’t claim back. The result is a cheaper rate that few travelers actually use.
Bring one account view to hotel partners
Many companies negotiate business trips and meetings with hotels separately. We advise clients on bringing them together instead. Combine the nights your travelers book, where they go and when, with your meeting room bookings and event dates. Hotels can then see the total value of your business, and you can ask for what you need in one clear conversation. A single combined deal isn’t guaranteed, but showing hotels everything you bring, gives you more negotiating power.
For example, In India we are seeing prices and demand continue to climb; especially in major cities. Looking at local hotels that may be able to offer better value and availability than brands more familiar to traveler might be a win. Like any new city or hotel be sure to align that the hotels answers to safety and security questions align with business requirements. This matters equally for both transient and meetings & events budgets, which the next section covers.
It’s also worth trying local hotels. In major Indian cities, where prices and demand have climbed for several years, carefully checked local hotels can offer better value than familiar global brands. Check safety and security first.
Applying these strategies to meetings and events
Meetings and events show why your hotel negotiations need to cover all the business you give a hotel. A colleague of Nina’s on the GBTA accommodations committee described a “concrete wall” that has kept meetings and business travel negotiations apart for years. Taking that wall down opens up better conversations with hotels. For example, you could offer a hotel your meetings in return for help keeping your transient travel rate down.
Look beyond the room rate
Expect the nightly room rate for meetings to be higher than for regular business trips, because it usually includes more. Group deals often come with a free room for every set number booked, discounts on meeting room rental, or credit to spend on food and drinks. If you compare the two rates without that context, you undersell what you’ve negotiated. Being able to explain the full value to your leadership team is where travel and meeting managers prove their worth.
The forecast expects the average daily cost per meeting attendee to reach $263 in 2026 and $267 in 2027, up from $255 in 2025. Group room rates should stay fairly stable, because plenty of new hotels are opening. The bigger cost increases come from the event itself. Staging, equipment and staff costs are expected to rise 6% to 10%, and food and beverage. The size and type of your event will affect your total cost more than price rises will.
Plan around the calendar and the outcome
Start planning large meetings around 18 months ahead. You can sometimes find a good last-minute deal when hotels have empty rooms, but planning early gives you time to compare dates and destinations properly. Nina’s example was a client who wanted Florida in December. Florida is always in demand in December, whereas Chicago might have more rooms and lower prices. Whether that swap works depends on the meeting requirements, objectives and theme.
That’s why ALTOUR’s meetings team starts every event with a full brief that spells out what success looks like. If price matters most, you focus on price. If the experience matters most, you focus on that. A board meeting can sometimes do without the wow factor, while an incentive trip may depend on it.
Big events in a city push up hotel prices, slow down travel and make local suppliers harder to book. For 2027, the year already looks to be full of high-ticket events, such as Super Bowl LXI in Los Angeles in February, the FIFA Women’s World Cup across eight Brazilian cities in June and July, the Ryder Cup in Adare, Ireland in September and the Men’s Rugby World Cup in Australia from October. An experienced planner checks these before setting dates, spending limits or booking deadlines.
Choose destinations on total meeting value
A cheap room rate in a hard-to-reach city can cost you more overall. Before you choose a destination, think about what the meeting needs to achieve, what attendees will pay in flights and travel time, whether hotels have enough rooms on your dates, and the full cost of food, staging and local transportation. Also ask whether a different date, format or size would deliver the same result for less.
If budgets get tighter, rethink the meeting before you cancel it. Keep the purpose, then test a different location, format or size, and cut back on breaks, catering choices and waste.
Taking these strategies into 2027
The webinar ended with five actions for 2027.
Sign hotel deals selectively while you have bargaining power
Build your budget on what you actually spent in 2026 and factor in forecasted market increases
Show how much of any change comes from prices, the amount of travel, where you go and exchange rates
Focus your negotiating time on the cities where you travel most. Plan for what happens if the US dollar weakens and utilize TMC negotiated rates where possible; especially in smaller volume cities.
And hold meetings where hotels have the rooms to give you good value, including smaller cities and resorts
As Nina put it, a forecast is a snapshot in time and one tool in your toolbox. Hotel markets will keep changing through 2027. The hotel negotiation strategies that work, are the ones you review city by city and share openly with your leadership and your hotel partners.
If you need a review of your transient and meetings & events program, speak with ALTOUR advisors and we’d be happy to look at how you can be saving on your hotel, meetings and events program – contact us.
Download the 2027 Global Business Travel Pricing Forecast
