Loyalty Programmes in Hotels - Essay Example

This research attempts to achieve an insight into the value of loyalty programmes to businesses and more specifically examine the value of loyalty programmes to hotels. Review of secondary data is applied to understand the value of loyalty programmes to businesses while a survey among hotels is conducted to examine its value to the hotels. Loyalty Programmes are defined as “schemes offering delayed, accumulating economic benefits to consumers who buy the brand”. Satisfaction does not equal loyalty.

A customer can be very satisfied with the product, but still be not loyal towards it. In order to encourage loyalty, firms develop loyalty programs. Typically, in a Loyalty Program, customers accumulate assets, points or rewards by accumulating their purchases from a local firm which is either exchanged for goods or the services, though not always associated with the firm. This generally adopts the system of points wherein the points can be exchanged for a variety of benefits such as free flyer points, gifts, trips, etc.

“Airline frequent-flier programs have been a prototype for many of the schemes”. Such schemes are based on the concept of repeat purchase, and in most businesses today, a large part of sales results from repeat purchase. This fact is being increasingly recognized by enterprises that are implementing loyalty programmes to encourage such purchase pattern. . The literature in general helped in understanding various factors and concepts associated with loyalty programme and then those had to be applied to the hotel industry for the research. 343.4 Research Approach 363.

5 Research Strategy 383.6 Sample selection 413.6.1 Administering the questionnaire 413.6.2 Analyzing the responses 433.7 Time Horizon 433.9.1 Reliability 473.9.2 Validity 48Limitations 49 50Ethical Considerations 504. Analysis and Discussion of Findings 514.1 Hotels' definition of loyal customers 524.2 Reason for launching loyalty programme 534.3 Target segment and benefits offered 554.4 Designing loyalty program for corporate segment 584.5 Loyalty programmes that attract maximum guests and justify expenses 594.

6 Objective of loyalty programs 614.7 Managing loyalty programme 634.8 Delivery mechanism 644.9 Involving staff 654.10 Assessing the success of loyalty programme 664.11 Failure of loyalty programme 705. Recommendations 72IntroductionBrief overview and backgroundThis research attempts to achieve an insight into the value of loyalty programmes to businesses and more specifically examine the value of loyalty programmes to hotels. Review of secondary data is applied to understand the value of loyalty programmes to businesses while a survey among hotels is conducted to examine its value to the hotels.

Loyalty Programmes are defined as "schemes offering delayed, accumulating economic benefits to consumers who buy the brand". Satisfaction does not equal loyalty. A customer can be very satisfied with the product, but still be not loyal towards it (Charles and Lamb, 2008).In order to encourage loyalty, firms