Evaluating Hotel Loyalty Programs in the Hospitality Sector

This essay critically evaluates the effectiveness of hotel loyalty programs within the hospitality sector. It begins by acknowledging the debate around customer loyalty in these programs, then delves into the benefits and strategic importance of these programs, referencing academic literature and industry examples. The essay highlights how loyalty programs are used to increase customer retention, improve financial performance, and adapt to technological advancements. It discusses successful loyalty program implementations by companies like Hyatt and Starwood, focusing on their ability to collect customer data and enhance service experiences. The essay also addresses the importance of unbiased customer behavior for recognizing the full benefits of loyalty programs. The conclusion emphasizes the evolving expectations of hotel guests and the role of loyalty programs in meeting these needs, ultimately arguing that the benefits of these programs outweigh the instances of disloyalty, as demonstrated by real-world examples.

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Student Name:
Module number and Title:
Subject: Essay Plan
Essay Title: “Hotel loyalty programme members have become
anything but loyal” (Quinby, D., 2018). Evaluate this point of view
within the context of a hospitality sector of your choice and illustrate
your discussion with appropriate examples.
Staff Name:
Date of Submission:
Matriculation number:
Name and Programme study:

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Introduction
Loyalty programme members in hotel industry have showed stances of disloyalty as
mentioned in the essay topic, but the overall benefits provided by it must not be ignored
completely. Therefore, this essay will undertake a research-based approach justifying that not
every loyalty programme member shows disloyalty. For the same, credible sources and books
will be utilised to present current literature along with providing industry examples.
Main discussion
Loyalty programme is one of the hospitality sector’s marketing product that helps
company’s increase consumers’ repetitive purchase behaviour through providing value-added
service and satisfaction. In hotels, loyalty programmes are managed strategically to promote
services as they believe that loyalty programme serves as business foundation for sustaining
competitive environment thereby influencing financial performances also. Loyalty
programmes proves to be most compelling in today’s organisations where technology and
ICT permeate consumers everyday life and makes difficult for businesses to keep them
engaged (Skripak, 2016).
Loyalty programme members of hotels undertake loyalty programme strategy
critically for maintaining globalised competition and Hyatt’s creation of its official website
named TravelWeb.com is one of the finest examples of loyalty programme success in hotel
industry. The programme implemented by hotel members gave real time access to its
customers for getting reservations after looking through every rooms inside the property.
Additionally, the database collected concerning customers keep hoteliers informed about
their customers preferences to serve them better along with benefitting them through
enhanced service experience (Benhadda, et al., 2016).

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According to Laskarin (2013), implementing, designing and monitoring of loyalty
programmes assists hotels in developing organisational structure along with organisational
culture. The author states that hotels that utilises loyalty programmes have seen increase in
their organisational values with growth seen in competitive sprit of service providers and
collectors of data concerning guests. This has been further conformed by Hua, Wei,
DeFranco & Wang (2018) where the authors state that “using loyalty programs to manage
current customers can reduce the cost needed to attract new customers, thereby indirectly
increasing the profitability” (p. 2196). The authors pinpoints that although loyalty
programmes improve customer relationships, it helps in exposing spectrums of service
experiences including unpleasant ones thereby leading organisations to bring changes in their
staffing and service-related areas.
Loyalty programme initiated by Starwood Hotels shows how their programme
developed customer engagement by giving them points for every money spent in their 1,000
hotels spread worldwide along with various other partners (Bethesda, 2018). Moreover, in
one of the recent news it is been revealed that loyalty programs can be the future behind
sustainable hospitality development as more and more hoteliers are considering it for
enhancing service-related elements (Mettler, 2017). However, it can also be noted that to
recognise loyalty benefits completely, loyalty members needs to be unbiased and loyal than
expressing scandalous views (Laškarin, 2013).
Conclusion
Todays’ hotel guests’ expectations seem to grow with time where they seek value-
added service and to keep them satisfied and loyalty programmes implemented in hotels
proves to be one of the best options. Loyalty shown by many hotels in their loyalty
programmes confirms its positive effect on hospitality sector. The above essay researched

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current aspects related to loyalty programmes and concludes on contradiction of the essay
topic due to numerous benefits recognised and success seen in real-world hotel examples.

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References
Benhadda, L., Bruyn, S. d., Chibili, M. N., Lashley, C., Lashley, C., Penninga, S., & Rowson,
B. (2016). Modern Hotel Operations Management (1 ed.). (M. N. Chibili, Ed.)
Netherlands: Noordhoff Uitgevers bv .
Bethesda. (2018). Marriott International’s Three Loyalty Programs Unify. Retrieved from
https://news.marriott.com/2018/08/marriott-internationals-three-loyalty-programs-
unify/
Hua, N., Wei, W., DeFranco, A. L., & Wang, D. (2018). Do loyalty programs really matter
for hotel operational and financial performance? International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(05), 2195-2213.
Laškarin, M. (2013). Development of Loyalty Programmes In The Hotel Industry. Tourism
and Hospitality Management, 19(01), 109-123.
Mettler, L. (2017, December). 4 Loyalty Program Changes to Watch in 2018. Retrieved from
https://travel.usnews.com/features/4-hotel-loyalty-program-changes-to-watch-in-2018
Skripak, S. J. (2016). Fundamentals of Business. Virginia: Virginia Tech.