Award-winning and Lexington-based lodging management company Creative Lodging Solutions (CLS) is celebrating 15 years of progress this year.
The company has enjoyed many successes, such as winning several prestigious awards for strategy, employee satisfaction and overall business model and growth.
CLS has surpassed the $400 million savings milestone for their clients. The corporate travel service has reserved over 13 million traveler nights nearing $1 billion in total bookings and streamlined their clients’ reservation process with negotiated hotel rates, accurate consolidated invoicing, improved travel policy adherence and robust reporting. CLS leverages its hotel expertise and cost reduction initiatives to achieve unprecedented savings off hotels’ published best available rates and indirect savings. CLS books over 23,000 reservations every month.
“We’ve come a long way, but we’re always involved in the improvement process. For instance, hotel rates have been rising exponentially over the last five years with no signs of stopping — some analysts predict an additional 4 percent increase in 2017. In response, we’re doing everything possible to make sure travel projects are still affordable for our clients,” says CEO Michael Tetterton.
Here are a few of the highlights from CLS’ expansion from startup to a thriving company:
- Mike Tetterton, Marsha Couch and Carolyn Hundley identified an industry need to help clients with long-term and project-based lodging manage daily travel tasks like booking and invoicing, so that they can refocus on their bottom line.
- During their start-up years, CLS used an airport hangar for an office and hung their reservation requests on a clothesline.
- As they grew, the company added departments necessary to stay in line with customer needs. Some of the first to be implemented were Hotel Auditing and Billing Reconciliation.
- The growing company earned Best Places to Work in Kentucky in 2010. They have won six years since then.
- The headquarters moved a few more times until, in 2015, they settled into their beautifully designed home in Beaumont Centre to support over 250 employees and growing.
- The company allocates over 10,000 paid community service hours annually to employees.
The tradition of excellent service and dedication to growth has tied CLS’ burgeoning early years — with a compound annual growth rate of 42 percent — to its even more promising future. CLS has been setting new records in reservations created, reserved nights and gross revenue for 15 consecutive years. The corporate lodging business is fast approaching the launch of a new reservation software system that will propel the company’s revenue growth.
In 2016, the company enjoyed the largest boost of new hires in its history. Speaking of new hires, the company added members to their executive leadership team: Tammye Rushing, chief strategy and implementation officer; Tim Mullarkey, chief technology officer; and Joe Nageotte, senior vice president of operations.
“We’re having a great time celebrating our continued success over the past years,” says Chief Culture and Development Officer Carolyn Hundley. “We’re proud of our development at this pivotal 15-year mark and can’t wait to see how our fresh leadership talent makes a difference in our company. I’m really looking forward to our quarterly State of the Company celebration this week too. We’re planning a lot of prizes and surprises that I think our employees will love.”
About Creative Lodging Solutions
Creative Lodging Solutions is an award-winning corporate lodging services provider that is passionate about great travel management service and the difference it can make to its business travelers, hotel partners and community. Launched in 2002, CLS aims to disrupt the business travel industry by combining the values of flexible hotel and corporate housing solutions with reliable travel expense and billing management. CLS reserved over 13 million traveler nights by offering volume discounts and easy hotel management to companies with over $250,000 in annual hotel travel. For more information, visit http://www.yourcls.com.
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