Perspectives

A restoration in hotel loyalty

Blueprint for reinventing loyalty

When hotel loyalty is viewed from a full-circle standpoint, companies can think about building it in the same way that construction workers build a home. Just as a blueprint defines the type of home to be built, hotel executives can create a blueprint for the kind of loyalty they want to create.

Reinventing hotel loyalty

​In this report, we explore how to increase the effectiveness of loyalty programs.  Our research points to two over-arching and compelling conclusions:

  • The best-case scenario is that hotel loyalty programs as they are constituted today have either little or no impact on travelers’ purchase decisions, and, worst case, these programs drive undesirable brand-switching behavior.
  • Hotel brands and owners that choose to instead build differentiated loyalty programs and a customer experience that anticipates and integrates priority customers’ personalized needs have the potential to capture incremental market share, as indicated by these facts.

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Travelers view on hotel loyalty

Participants in our survey were active travelers, having stayed at a hotel in the past 12 months. We identified the following customer segments from this group.

  • Proficient traveler
  • Moderate traveler
  • Mature Leisure traveler
  • Newbie traveler

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The Deloitte Hotel and Airline Traveler survey was conducted in October 2012 among 4,000 travelers in the United States who either stayed at a hotel or took a flight in the past 12 months. The survey focused on traveler behavior and attitudes, including customer engagement preferences, travel-booking behavior, and the effectiveness of loyalty programs in the hotel and airline industries.

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