The Charles Hotel, Cambridge/Boston
Business travel was one of the first items cut from the company budget when the economy tanked a few years ago. However, as bottom lines start shaping up, more businesses are bringing back the corporate travel card and sending their suited ones out for an important meeting.
In a study by global research firm Oxford Economics, and published by U.S. Travel Association, new research showed a clear link between business travel and business growth. According to the study, for every dollar invested in business travel, businesses experience an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits. At the end of the reporting year, business travel in the U.S. was responsible for $246 billion in spending and 2.3 million American jobs; $100 billion of this spending and 1 million American jobs are linked directly to meetings and events. The study found that curbing business travel can have a strong negative impact on corporate profits. The average business in the U.S. would forfeit 17 percent of its profits in the first year of eliminating business travel, and it would take more than three years for profits to recover. As American businesses worked to rebuild the economy and set their 2010 budgets, the one constant on the books was the profit from business travel and thus, the trend was re-born.
As any company will tell you, however, it’s sometimes hard to re-emerge after a hiatus. While business travelers were kept grounded, hotels used this downtime to their advantage and recreated their rooms, waiting areas and amenities to cater to travelers of all types. With this in mind, I traveled to the top three business cities in the Northeast (New York, Boston and Washington, DC) and rounded up the best of the business travel hotels, spanning three price points (budget, moderate, and luxury).
I gave my picks to the New York Daily News on the best business travel hotels in three price points – budget, moderate, luxury. Where should you stay? Read my picks.
