Summary 2: Hotel chains try new ways to earn loyalty; December 02, 2009

The article that I have chosen, comes from the New York Time and deals with the new ways for hotel chains to gain customer’s loyalty.

The issue is as follows: hotel chains have been particularly strike by the financial crisis: less booking, lowering rates and brand loyalty decreasing. According to Henry Hartevelds, a travel analyst only 36% of business travels this year replied that they were brand loyal, a decrease of 5% compared to 2 years ago.

So, gaining customer’s loyalty has become a major objective for hoteliers. Hotel chains have come up with the solution to develop special treatment or special attention for their customers to cement their loyalty.

Hotel chains as Hilton or Sheraton have been improving their customer’s loyalty strategy by:

- Offering free nights to their best customers
- Launched a loyalty points tactic
- Free amenities as for example: breakfast, Internet connection, parking, minibar

In one word, hotels chains are offering to their customers more than what they have paid for.

To my point of view, gaining customer’s loyalty has become a major strategy for hotel chains to increase sales growth. For example, business travelers may be an important target for hotel chains in their loyalty strategy. Offering added value rather than lowering rates might be more valuable for business travelers.

More exactly, gaining loyalty point for business travelers can be valuable for them as they can use those points for their personal travel (vacations).

In my opinion, those types of marketing tactics can be very enticing for customers. As for gaining customer’s loyalty, the goals for hotel chains are to keep on the long term its customers and have a good word of mouth. According to certain analysts, a company can increase its profits from 25% to 85% by retaining only 5% of its customers.