In today’s digital world customer behavior is changing extremely fast. This largely influence the travel and tourism industry which try to get more and more reservations. Thanks to the rapid growth of the online travel agencies, review websites, forums and blogs, travellers are more informed than ever and spend way more time searching the best deal and the best hotel before booking. The loyalty to a certain brand is fading because customers look for the best offer and it’s not hard for them to find it.
That’s why the task of today’s hoteliers to turn their guests into loyal customers is becoming even more difficult. Loyalty programs are not what they used to be because of the development of the Internet and new technologies. Nowadays the emphasis is on the web focus of these programs.
Targeting
The core, however, is always the proper customer targeting. It is extremely important to differ the different types of hotel’s guests and to create a strategy tailored to their specific needs. The creation of email list of our visitors and its proper management is also an important part of increasing the loyalty and the marketing effect.
There are also some other key rules which might guarantee us more successful relationships with our hotel’s guests.
Personalization
For our hotel’s loyalty program to be efficient it needs to be personalized. In order to get more bookings, our strategy towards different types of guests should be different. We can’t use the same ‘special deal’ to tourists from Germany and the one from Russia, for instance. We should shape our deals and packages according to our different targeting groups which we determined in advance. Those groups might be family tourists, business tourists, groups, foreign tourists, etc.
Then we can analyze customer’s behavior among the different groups and to offer them exactly what they need. To the family traveller we can send special deal with free tickets to the nearby aquapark for the whole family. The business tourist can get free wine or transfer to the airport.
Understanding
In order to attract loyal customers and create a working hotel’s loyalty program we need to make it understandable. Sometimes loyalty programs in tourism are too complicated and customers just don’t want to get involve with something they are not sure they understand. The idea is to make our guests to understand the advantages very easy and second – to see the result right now.
We can say that leaving their email address they are automatically getting 20% discount on their next booking or, even better, a free night in our hotel. In that case, in their mind, they will know that they have an arrangement with us. The next time they visit town, they will automatically remember to collect their “prize”. Meanwhile they are already on our email list and hotel’s loyalty program and we can send them all kind of tailored offers.
Easy to access
We can easily attract new customers to our hotel’s loyalty program if we distribute the news in different channels and make the access very easy. Maybe a landing page on our website or button on our social network channels. If we get their email we are a step away from getting them into our hotel.
For the successful loyalty program it is important not only to create the initial idea and strategy. We have to implement some sort of software into our plan such as email marketing software, CRM or other technology. It is also very important to monitor and measure the performance of the hotel’s loyalty program. If something is not working, we have to change it in time.
We wish you good luck with your loyalty program! If you need help creating and developing one, our team can help you! Contact us at info@travelmind.eu.
