This recent article from our monthly member newsletter highlights how one of our member’s regularly uses barter to increase sales and offset cash expenses for his hotel:

Saving cash and improving business is the main goal at BizXchange. Using trade for large business expenses is the best way our members save cash and receive the most benefit from barter.

Homewood Suites general manager, Chris Shelton, originally thought the greatest value of joining BizX would be spending on perks for employees. But after his recent mattress purchase he realized that, while employee incentives and personal purchases are a great bonus, investing his BizX on capital expenses delivered the greatest impact to his bottom line.

When Shelton told his Account Executive that it had been almost a decade since mattresses were purchased for the hotel’s pull-out couches, his Account Executive was committed to fulfilling this hotel necessity on BizX.

Shelton previously hadn’t thought of using BizX to purchase capital expenses, like mattresses, so he generally used it to reward his staff. “I buy a lot of local goods and services as employee incentives, which they really appreciate,” Shelton said. “And I couldn’t do that otherwise.”

Realizing that the mattress purchase would require a significant BizX investment, Shelton had his Account Executive book their empty hotel rooms and banquet rooms for vacations, extended stays and company conventions. After accumulating the necessary BizX funds, they made the $55,000 purchase for 160 mattresses.

“Purchasing the mattresses on BizX saved us thousands of dollars,” Shelton said. “As tight as things are, we wouldn’t have been able to do it with cash. This is about the only way it could be done.”

The mattress company that provided Homewood Suites with the beds regularly uses their BizX for employee compensation, advertising and promotion and in the past has used it for general contracting, signage, printing and $25,000 worth of sales training. As a direct result of the Homewood Suites mattress purchase, the mattress company will now be purchasing an advanced security and DVR system.

When the final mattress installment is delivered in late March, Homewood Suites will have fulfilled an essential to keep their hotel up-to-date and comfortable and the mattress company will be able to afford a business necessity for any retail store. And both will have generated new sales and saved a lot of cash in the process.

This is one example of hotel barter. What other hotel industry barter transactions have you heard about?