HOTEL LOYALTY BY JONATHAN HART
Although ostensibly trading both up and down, the changes overall represent a devaluation of schemes
hotels offering a better service than having to entice travellers with rewards just to stay at a property.”
is that some corporate travellers will benefit from the changes and others will have their noses put out of joint.
SCORING POINTS In the red corner, stripped-down hotel schemes are aiming to knock out easier- to-redeem rewards in favour of lavishing more personalised high-end trophies on targeted big spending guests. In the blue corner, average-stay road war- riors face pumping up their membership status or punching above their spending weight to win anything worthwhile on points. In short, ‘one size fits all’ strategies are being ditched and ‘lightweight’ loyalty offers being put out to grass. Points still mean prizes but generally are being made harder to earn and redeem against rewards, such as upgrades. Although ostensibly trading both up and down, the changes overall represent a devaluation of schemes that anyway play
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
only a minor, indirect role in managed corporate travel. Compared to airline loyalty schemes, for example, the tangible bottom-line benefits of hotel schemes to integrated travel manage- ment are commonly viewed by buyers as minimal or too disparate. But in an era where return on investment (ROI) impinges on every transaction, what, if any, challenges do they pose to corporate purchasers? None, says Cherry Salvesen, buyer for Cullum Detuners, who runs a small but highly frequent traveller army of 200. Loyalty schemes are irrelevant to the company’s hotel booking processes, she says. “Our policy remains cost-based dependent on project or client, and each booking is completed with location, budget and quality service as the main criteria. “Besides, the benefits that most loyalty schemes offer, such as free wifi, should be the norm for any stay. I would rather see all
DATA CAPTURE On a larger scale, marketing via a slew of social media, online travel agencies (OTAs) or new third-party apps ultimately might suggest easier electronic capture and management of loyalty scheme data for buyers. But brand fragmentation and lack of information are challenges, according to one buyer for a global manufacturer. “No hotel programme seems to be able to pull or provide data to us as corporates,” he says. “For example, I can’t tell how many of our em- ployees are in a programme, or what the cash benefit to us has been. We don’t know what we are winning or losing, we don’t know what’s going on – hotels are not telling us what they are doing with their programmes concerning our employees directly.” He says more data on corporate mem-
bership, spend and rewards gained would benefit all parties. Another travel buyer for a telecoms firm adds: “Overall, we take the view that loyalty schemes can be supportive of travel policy if they are properly managed. In some cases they can help with compliance. We allow travellers to include their [hotel membership] account details in their profiles, so they can still make their bookings through the travel management company (TMC) or online booking tool (OBT) channels and obtain loyalty points.”
BBT MAY/JUNE 2014 95
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