How an Omnichannel POS Platform and Data-Driven Loyalty Program Can Help Hotel Owners Tap into Increased Summer Travel Demand
Summertime has always been the busy season for the hospitality industry, but today, with pent-up travel demand raging following the COVID-19 pandemic, this year has the potential to be busier than ever. Travel is set to increase 16% in 2022 over last year, and nearly 75% of Americans plan to travel domestically for their summer vacations. Hotel operators need to adapt in order to capture that increased traffic, and having the right technology in place can help them boost revenue, optimize marketing campaigns and encourage repeat bookings this year.
Choose Quality, Data-Driven Solutions
The power of an omnichannel POS platform is about more than streamlining the hotel’s operations and increasing guest satisfaction. It also provides critical data-driven insights, an incredibly valuable tool for maximizing sales, as well as turnkey reporting options that make it easy to identify patterns and trends.
With real-time POS data, such as guests’ spending habits and demographic details, hotel operators have a prime opportunity to create guest-specific marketing campaigns, for example. Campaigns highlighting products or services that guests have historically shown interest in are a great way to entice repeat revenue or encourage sales of high-margin products and services.
Execute a High-Quality Rewards Program
With omnichannel POS platforms, hotels can also engage with their guests and design customized loyalty programs tailored to a specific group or reflect guests’ proven needs and previous behaviors. This type of customer engagement is more important than ever amid the challenges of the pandemic. Recent polling showed that 75% of guests favor companies that offer rewards, and 56% stay loyal to brands that offer these programs.
By collecting personal data, POS systems provide hotel operators with additional information to further entice guests to return through promotions, incentives and discounts. Hotel owners can also utilize loyalty programs to reward their top-priority guests and work to develop promotions and other programs that will bring in additional guests like them.
Create Diverse, Individualized Loyalty Programs
The best hotel loyalty programs are built on a foundation of personalization. As travelers’ demographics become more diverse than ever, working to develop data-based hotel loyalty programs will be critical.
Most loyalty programs provide tiered rewards to guide customers through the process: rewards for joining the program, downloading the app, referring friends and more. Hotel operators can retarget big loyalty program spenders with specific email promotions that are more likely to resonate based on their purchase history.
Instant gratification rewards systems are another popular loyalty program strategy for hotel owners, offering guests a reward to use during a current stay and encouraging an in-the-moment purchase.
Leveraging a foundation of seamless tech solutions will ensure real-time data is available, greatly impacting the support of more individualized loyalty and rewards programs. As the hospitality industry bounces back, an intentional investment in the right technology will allow hotel operators to continue to adapt their operations, reward loyal customers and boost summertime revenue.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Since joining Givex in 2007, Mo Chaar has helped the company expand its North American footprint. He began his tenure as a Business Development Manager before becoming Vice President of Sales for North America, and then moved to his current role of Chief Commercial Officer. In this role, Chaar oversees commercial strategy and development worldwide as well as managing the sales teams within North America. His experience in gift card, loyalty and POS has played a pivotal role in the success of some of Givex’s largest partners. As Givex continues to expand on a global level, with a wide array of product offerings, there is a need to keep the teams aligned on pricing, product and sales approach. As the CCO, Chaar continues to manage the North American Sales and Corporate Account Management teams and also takes on the added duties of supporting the Global Managing Directors in ensuring that all functions of the organization are aligned to meet our strategic commercial objectives. Learn more at givex.com.