The article headed 'Hotel Chains try New Ways to Earn Loyalty' has been published on the New York Times's site on December 1, 2009 by Elizabeth Olson.
This article deals with the increasing level of personal attention offered by hotels to their clients.
As a matter of fact, business travelers' loyalty to a hotel brand has been decreasing this year compared to the last one. Indeed, because of the overall economic situation, companies are trying to save as much money as possible on business trips.
As this clientele is a major part of some hotel chains' customers, they are therefore trying hard to attract them anyway, offering added value.
On the other hand, these business travelers tend to claim their loyalty points acquiring during their business stay for personal use.
As a consequence, the more a businessman comes to a chosen hotel, the more he will get points and the more he will come back with its family for week end for instance.
That is why they are trying so hard to find new ways to develop and earn their clients' loyalty: offering them a compact disc of their favorite music, free nights, upgrades, wine testing, or even sotring a guest's suitcase between visits.
Lowering rates is not always perceived by the clients as much as it could, but services offered are something always noticed, and kept in mind by guests. Indeed, hotels are supposed to offer services. So this is indeed the most important to work on. Developping special and inventive loyalty rewards is therefore a most clever mean to make cleints to come back.
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I agree with your article. I think that hotels such us air company need to develop the customer loyalty by the means you talked about in your article.
ReplyDeleteMoreover I think that hotels must to do much more efforts on this because they are less commun than air companies and more numerous.
I think that they all have to face as soon as possible this kind of policy.
Customers are less and less loyal to a brand because of the competition which offers a large variety of services.
ReplyDeleteThat is why, it is important to target businessmen because they are sensitive to come back in a hotel for a personal trip, for leisure with their families or friends.
Hi !
ReplyDeleteI find this article interesting because it shows that costumers are really an important parameter in all kind of business...
Like you say in your article the customer are sensitive to the service of the hotel.
ReplyDeleteIt could also be for the personal of the front desk or from the restaurants that make the client comfortable and make him feel happy.
it exist a lot of customer loyalty programme one of the best is the starwood preferred guest SPG witch was transformed into a starwood preferred planner SPP.
So the meeting planners are also targeted to bring client to the starwood hotels chain. They are not only targeted the companies.
Totally and moreover they are now using social media to increase the influence of their loyalty program. Starwood launched a few months ago an IPhone apps to make it easier for their clients!
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