Find out how Zillow saved 15% on group hotel spend with Hubli
Zillow runs 300 to 400 "ZRetreats" annually — culture-building gatherings that bring together a workforce that is 100% corporate travellers. As the programme scaled, managing hotel room blocks became increasingly complex and time-consuming.
Room block management was fragmented across multiple spreadsheets, email chains, and individual planner tracking systems, with no centralised view of committed versus actual spend. This made it impossible to forecast accurately, identify savings opportunities, or ensure hotel contracts were being honoured consistently.
Fragmented tracking made it impossible to see total room block spend or benchmark against quoted rates until events were complete.
Room block creation, guest assignment, attrition management, and invoice reconciliation were all done manually — consuming dozens of hours per event.
With no central system to embed and enforce MSA terms, ensuring hotel compliance required significant manual oversight.
Zillow's high-volume retreat programme was being managed with a transient travel strategy, leaving significant group savings unrealised.
Led by Global Travel Manager Tami Pharr, Zillow transitioned from a transient to a group hotel sourcing strategy using hubli. The platform was integrated directly into Zillow's travel management ecosystem, replacing fragmented manual processes with a centralised, compliance-first approach to room block management.
Zillow's MSA terms were loaded into hubli to automatically deploy to hotels, ensuring compliance standards were surfaced before RFP submission and enforced throughout contracting.
Room block agreements replaced Zillow's transient hotel strategy for ZRetreats, unlocking negotiated group rates and delivering 15% savings across a 7-figure annual hotel spend.
hubli was connected into Zillow's travel management platform, centralising room block management within the tools their team already used.
Zillow developed a "hotel & flight tracker" in partnership with hubli — a tool hubli is now building into its core platform for all clients.
Automated attrition management and invoice reconciliation replaced manual spreadsheet tracking, eliminating hours of administrative work per event.
Live dashboards gave Zillow visibility into room nights, spend by property and destination, savings vs. quoted rates, and programme-wide compliance — all in one place.
on group hotel spend, delivering a 7-figure annual reduction in travel costs.
per booking through automation and streamlined group management.
achieved through embedded contract terms and automated deployment to hotels.
"I began doing the sourcing piece, but once I got experienced enough that I could train someone else, we have assigned one person on the planning team who is dedicated to sourcing those 300 or 400 annual retreats."
Tami Pharr
Global Travel Manager
Before Hubli, Zillow's room block spend was fragmented across multiple spreadsheets, email chains, and individual planner tracking systems. They had no centralized view of committed vs. actual spend, making it impossible to forecast accurately or identify savings opportunities until events were complete.
Zillow eliminated manual room block creation in spreadsheets, email-based tracking, manual guest assignment across properties, spreadsheet-based attrition calculations, and invoice reconciliation against multiple quoted rates — saving dozens of hours per event.
Zillow tracks total room nights booked, spend by property and destination, savings vs. quoted rates, attrition rates across events, and consumption patterns — all from real-time dashboards that feed into their broader meetings program reporting.
Hubli embedded Zillow's contract and MSA terms within the platform, flagging top level requirements to hotels and venues before RFP submission and displaying the final contract once a booking is accepted.
