When going gets tough, points get going

What a difference six months makes.  Last time I attended the bi-annual Best Western Travel Summit, the talk was all about how high gas prices might keep U.S. travellers from driving to Canada in the summer. That seems so ironic  Oh, if that were all we had to worry about!

The January summit, which pertains to business travel, had a different focus—loyalty programs. Because it seems that when the going gets tough, the loyalty points get going.
It’s easy to see why.  In tough times, even the most affluent travellers are looking for a bargain. And smart hospitality operators realize that they can use reward points to accomplish two goals at once—to give travellers the bargains they crave, and keep those travellers coming back to their properties.

Canadians are known internationally as being points fanatics—a trend that has only increased during these trying economic times.  Perhaps the most telling statistic is found in the Hotel Association of Canada’s annual survey of the industry by Fleishman-Hilliard.  In 2007, just 32 per cent of travellers said travel points were important.  This year, that figure leaped to 54 per cent. Only 16 per cent said travel points were not important.
The trend attaching importance to points was especially strong among Ontario business travellers, and 35- to 54 year-olds, HAC president Tony Pollard says.

Dorothy Dowling, Best Western’s senior vice-president, marketing and sales puts it succinctly.  “Loyalty programs are definitely king as road warriors recognize their benefits and learn how to take full advantage of them.

“Best Western is seeing the highest-ever usage levels of Best Western Rewards and we’re responding by offering promotions virtually every day of 2009, to continue rewarding our loyal customers,” she added.

“These days business travellers are more likely to book with airlines, car rental companies and hotels that offer loyalty programs with good reward value, greater flexibility and more choices that they can take advantage of for personal travel with friends and family,” said Nathalie Belanger, general manager of rewards management at Aeroplan, who also spoke at the summit.

“We are also noticing anecdotal evidence of more small business owners redeeming their Aeroplan Miles for travel compared with years past.”

The numbers for some loyalty programs are mind-boggling. Michael Beckley, senior vice president, lodging development for Marriott told me the other day that worldwide, the Marriott rewards program has over 30 million members. That’s almost equal to the entire population of Canada! Marriott has close to 3,000 hotels, so the average is 10,000 reward members per hotel.

Wyndham boasts the largest program by number of participating hotels. Wyndham Worldwide encompasses more than 6,550 hotels and 551,000 rooms worldwide in 59 countries.

But in my books, Starwood Preferred Guest’s Clear Card  gets the prize for the most innovative loyalty promotion. The hotel chain has teamed up with Clear, whose members have their identities authenticated and receive a card that allows access to Clear’s security lanes, enabling them to go through security hassle-free in airports in Atlanta, Denver, Orlando, and 15 other U.S. cities.

Rewards programs have come a long way in the 26 years since Holiday Inn launched the first hotel brand frequent stay program in Canada. And they seem to be one of the keys to weathering these traumatic times.

—Colleen Isherwood, Editor