By consolidating global contracts and handing negotiations to Christopherson’s experts, Autoliv cut admin load, fixed rate-loading issues, and opened shared discounts across regions—culminating in a hard-won, chainwide Hilton agreement.
Autoliv is the world's largest automotive safety supplier, with operations in 25 countries. The company’s travel program spans the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, while European counterparts operate on a separate agency. The practical goal was to make negotiated content visible and bookable across the company—so travelers from Europe could use U.S. and Mexico rates and colleagues from those regions could use European rates—without one-off workarounds.
“We’ve been able to get our contracts loaded into their system, and then vice versa,” explained Susan Ross, who manages travel for North America.
At the same time, the team wanted to reduce administrative burden. Reaching the right hotel contacts for renewals or renegotiations consumed hours.
“I would call and call and call and nobody would call you back,” Ross recalled.
Passing that work to Christopherson freed bandwidth for higher-value tasks.
The obstacles were classic for a global company: fragmented contracting across regional teams, unclear visibility into which agreements existed, and rate-loading issues that made negotiated content unreliable. Ross’s biggest pain point was chasing hotels for extensions or changes—work that often stalled at the wrong contact. Meanwhile, Autoliv had pursued a chainwide Hilton agreement for years but was told their spend didn’t qualify, leaving them to manage property-by-property deals.
Despite those hurdles, Autoliv’s program wasn’t broken—just disconnected. Leakage was limited, in part because domestic bookings go directly through the GDS with on-site agents, but the broader opportunity was to knit together contracting so travelers everywhere could benefit from the same negotiated value.
Christopherson stepped in as a high-leverage intermediary—owning outreach, renewals, and escalations with hotel partners. For Ross, the change was immediate.
“To have someone handle these kinds of things for us takes a lot off my plate,” she said.
With Christopherson advocating on Autoliv’s behalf, the team stopped “chasing their tail” on rate-loading and contract clarifications and started closing loops faster.
On the platform side, Christopherson helped surface existing agreements (including some that different teams had already negotiated) and load contracts across systems—notably enabling European travelers to use North American rates and giving North America access to European deals. That two-way visibility turned scattered wins into a cohesive program.
The signature milestone was the global Hilton agreement. After years of being told that Autoliv lacked sufficient revenue for a chainwide deal, the consolidated view of spend—and persistent negotiation—delivered a contract with scaling discounts that improve as goals are met.
“It’s up and running, and we are using it every day,” Ross noted.
Even with a strong base program, the partnership produced quantifiable gains. Over the prior 12 months, Autoliv recorded about $1.9 million in hotel sales, with $800,000 booked on Autoliv-negotiated rates—and $372,000 saved on those bookings. Those figures predate the full run-rate impact of the new Hilton contract, suggesting additional upside as the scaling discounts kick in.
Equally important is the time dividend.
Ross and her colleague in Mexico are “extremely busy,” and handing negotiations to Christopherson converts hours of calls and follow-ups into completed work—renewals extended, contracts loaded, rate issues resolved. The team also reports fewer surprises: when the platform flags a market where Autoliv should have a rate—or reveals a rate that already exists but wasn’t widely known—Christopherson helps reconcile and load the correct content so travelers can actually book it.
Operationally, leakage remains low thanks to disciplined booking through the GDS as well as centralized channels. That reliability, combined with the chainwide coverage, gives Autoliv a sturdier platform heading into renewal season—one that scales globally while reducing day-to-day friction for a lean team.
“We’re really happy with Christopherson's hotel program,” Ross said. “It’s definitely beneficial for us.”
Together, Autoliv and Christopherson built a hotel program that finally matches Autoliv’s global footprint—unlocking chainwide coverage, cleaner data, and measurable savings today, with additional upside as the Hilton scaling discounts mature—so the team can spend less time chasing fixes and more time running the business.
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