(Wichita, KS) Corporate Lodging Consultants Inc. (CLC) has been selected for a prestigious award from the Society of Government and Travel Professionals for administering a national lodging program that has housed more than 700,000 evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The program began in August 2005 and continues into 2006.
The Society of Government Travel Professionals this week announced the honorees for its 2005 Professional Development Awards. CLC was selected for SGTP's highest award for the category, the Best Program Award for Disaster Refugee Lodging. CLC and other category award winners will be recognized during SGTP's Annual Conference from February 8 -10 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandria, VA.
"This year's tremendous response and quality of entries is due to a lot of hard and focused work on behalf of their organizations and the government traveler," said award committee co-chairs Scott E. Lamb, Hyatt Select Hotels, and Norma R. Pratt, Rodgers Travel.
CLC, a privately held company located in Wichita, Kansas, provides customized lodging programs to more than 250 corporations and organizations throughout North America, including the American Red Cross (ARC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Under FEMA's Short-Term Lodging program, formerly the ARC Special Transient Accommodations program, CLC administrated more than $350 million in hotel billings generated by hurricane evacuees utilizing more than 11,000 hotels and 290,000 hotel rooms. Through the program, hotel room rates have averaged one-third less than the average hotel room rate, saving the government millions of dollars.
"To be recognized for excellence in support of the United States government is indeed an honor for Corporate Lodging Consultants," said George Hansen III, president and CEO of CLC. "It is certainly something we didn't anticipate. Our focus was, and will remain, to assist the victims of this tragedy."