Bruce Lahood, Mastercard's loyalty expert, is sharing his insights into travel loyalty programs and highlights 3 key trends: 1/ Lifestyle Loyalty, 2/ Relevance & Recognition, 3/ Simplicity & Accessibility.
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GLOBruce Lahood, Mastercard’s loyalty expert, is sharing his insights into travel loyalty programs. Read in full on Mastercard website.
Key takeaways are:
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- Lifestyle Loyalty – Brands are striving to stay relevant and top of mind with their high-value consumers by creating value in their members’ everyday lives, not just their travel experience… With a shift and reweighting of the traveler segments, legacy airline and hotel loyalty programs will need to recalibrate and, more importantly, rebalance their offerings toward recognition and benefits rather than overly rely on points and member discounts.
In the article, Bruce Lahood highlights Singapore Airlines’ innovative, blockchain-powered solution which means members can use their frequent flyer mileage currency to earn and redeem products and services as part of their everyday life. Kris+ offers its users a simple, app-enabled method to transact, with hundreds of merchants, brought to life through active marketing campaigns, merchant funded offers and gamification to engage its members.
In another example, Mr. Lahood mentions Hyatt’s partnership with Headspace to offer its World of Hyatt members a service to help them wind down, stress less and sleep soundly. The partnership serves as a natural extension of their corporate commitment to wellness and wellbeing and positions the brand as a considerate advocate for the needs of its guests.
- Relevance and Recognition – Consumers value strong relationships and meaningful experiences with brands over transactional engagement. Increasingly, they’re seeking memorable, rewarding and enriching emotional interactions that offer choice and control and make their travel easier.
- Simplicity and Accessibility – Brands are redesigning programs to provide alternative ways to maximize the benefits of program membership, including more opportunities to access benefits and unlock value. Added tiers and realizable spend thresholds will help to shape more flexible programs that are easier to understand and offer members more choice and control.
Mastercard’s team comes to the conclusion that “For an industry that is recognized as a pioneer in loyalty, the programs of today are not necessarily representative of the needs of the future traveler. Constant innovation in program design and delivery is essential”.
About Mastercard loyalty and personalization strategy consulting services
Mastercard’s Loyalty and Personalization Consulting practice drives transformative solutions for ambitious brands, fostering authentic, profitable customer relationships. We leverage an unmatched set of consumer and behavioral data to offer market insights, anticipate consumer trends that empower business decisions, and enhance customer lifetime value.
We have a broad spectrum of talent with deep expertise across vertical markets, data strategy and marketing technology. We combine that industry knowledge with a consumer-centric mindset to serve as trusted advisors, facilitating meaningful business transformations in partnership with our clients.
To learn more about trends in the broader travel industry, read Travel Industry Trends 2023. To work with us to develop and execute successful loyalty strategies that drive stronger customer relationships, please reach out to your Mastercard representative or request a demo.
Source: Mastercard
