Acta turistica nova, Vol. 2 No. 1, 2008.
Original scientific paper
Where Leads Modern Loyalty Programs On Tourism Market?
Davor Gjivoje
Abstract
ABSTRACT
The hospitality industry is the highest sale-generating industry within the tourism industry. However, this industry is currently suffering the effects of oversupply, and therefore enhanced competition and shrinking margins; a general ineptitude with regard to meeting guests’ expectations; and underutilization of collected data related to customer preferences. These inefficiencies are currently neither corrected nor addressed by the contemporary “loyalty programs” within this industry.
In 1981, initiated by the American Airlines© Frequent Flier Program, AAdvantage©, the era of “loyalty programs” began. The original expectation of these programs was that program members would exhibit more loyal purchasing practices in comparison to non-members; the activities of program members would reward and stimulate customer loyalty by giving them enhanced social or economic value with every purchase (Leenheer, Bijmolt, van Heerde and Smidts 2002). Though the underlying strategy of increasing revenue by targeting existing customers and stimulating loyalty is an essential marketing strategy for contemporary customer service industries, contemporary loyalty programs are structurally flawed for several reasons.
In this article the new loyalty program for application in the hotel industry will be outlined.
Keywords
tourism market; customer; preferences; loyalty program
Hrčak ID:
37741
URI
Publication date:
9.6.2008.
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