New Skift Trends Report: The Reinvention of Airline and Hotel Loyalty Programs

For our second Global Trends Report for February, we closely examine how airlines and hotel brands are reinventing their loyalty programs.

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Loyalty programs, long the linchpin of any successful airline or hotel marketing strategy, are in the midst of a massive shift, both in how consumers perceive them and how successful travel marketers are using them to attract and retain guests. Rather than any one factor, a variety of industry trends are conspiring to drastically impact the what it means to run a successful loyalty program.

While the “points for rewards” loyalty paradigm still rules, there are plenty of new loyalty strategies that are challenging this model. A tidal wave of data, coming from customer mobile phones, social media and digital behavior on booking websites offers new opportunities to better personalize services, surprise and satisfy customers. Those companies that manage to incorporate this wealth of travel data into their loyalty offering stand to reap significant rewards, both in terms of customer perception and in terms of their bottom line.

Our report “The Reinvention of Airline and Hotel Loyalty Programs” investigates how factors including downward pressures on reward value, key technological shifts in how consumers search for and use travel information online, and more transparent sources of price data are leading marketers to rethink the value and the purpose of longstanding loyalty programs, often with important consequences for consumers and the industry.

The first four pages of the 21-page report, including Table of Contents, are embedded below: Buy the Report

About These Reports

This is the eleventh report in a series of twice-monthly trends reports that brief readers on a specific trend, providing insight into the current state of the market, the context around the trend, and where the industry is heading in the near future.

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You can read more about the trend reports here.

Any and all feedback is welcome. Contact ra AT skift.com.

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