In today’s crowded travel landscape, choice alone doesn’t earn customer loyalty—personalization does.
Travelers gravitate toward brands that not only give them options but consistently present the right ones—relevant, curated, and based on their unique preferences. According to a 2024 McKinsey survey, 78% of consumers are more likely to make a repeat purchase when offered a personalized experience based on their data, such as travel preferences and history, highlighting the demand for travel personalization that leverages historical data to inform future travel decisions. For loyalty program managers, this isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a loyalty imperative.
Travel Personalization: Not Just More Options, But the Right Options
Simply having the widest array of inventory isn’t enough—that’s what Google is for. Brands that want to inspire true loyalty will lean into the curation and personalization in travel, providing customers with choices that are tailored to their specific interests and informed by previous interactions with your brand.
For example, if your hotel brand were to consistently present a guest with an array of inventory curated to their interests, chances are that guest will turn to your brand for more and more of their travel needs. In other words, if you help them find something unique, relevant, and “just for their” needs, you’ll earn their respect—and a much bigger share of their travel spend.
Tailoring Rewards to Individual Preferences
Understanding and meeting the unique preferences of your loyalty program members is key to fostering long-term engagement and satisfaction. You can achieve personalization at scale by leveraging customer data to uncover valuable insights into what types of rewards will resonate most with different segments of your customer base.
Embrace Data for a Customized Travel Loyalty Program
To provide curated and personalized offerings, you need insights into your customers’ behaviors and preferences – and that comes from data. Loyalty program data is critical for understanding the customer and driving program strategies; loyalty program members are incentivized to provide personal data to join a program and resupply their member information during travel booking to earn points or other types of rewards.
But even without any prior booking data or personally identifiable information, as a travel brand, you’ll already know plenty about your customers, for example:
- You know that someone who books four flights together with two adjoining hotel rooms is probably a family going on vacation.
- You know that visitors to your travel website located in Chicago will search for tropical destinations when they’re browsing in January.
- You know what your popular products are based on past bookings, the destination, length of trip, number of days in advance, and any other explicit input from the search request.
This type of data allows you to curate a selection of relevant travel inventory even if the customer hasn’t supplied any personal information, but only if you have the technological capability to capture the data and tailor the offer for a customized travel loyalty program.
Segmenting Members for Targeted Offers
To maximize engagement, segment your customers based on their preferences and behaviors. Effective segmentation can be achieved through demographics (age, gender, income level), behavioral data (booking history, travel frequency), and psychographics (lifestyle and interests, such as adventure seekers or business travelers). Once segmented, offer personalized rewards like customizable reward options, allowing customers to choose from a variety of rewards based on their interests. This approach ensures that curated offerings resonate deeply with each customer segment, enhancing corporate travel rewards personalization for business travelers.
Software Solutions for Corporate Travel Rewards Personalization
Connecting customer data—from many sources, including loyalty programs, online searches, and transactions—with real-time rates and availability from multiple sources is how travel brands can provide a better customer experience and build long-term loyalty. Tailoring, bundling, and personalizing offers in this way allows you to streamline your booking process and increase conversions in your direct channels.
But to achieve corporate travel rewards personalization, you need the right platform and partner that can provide robust curation, sorting, filtering, and merchandising tools to give your customers what they want and expect. In other words, you can build greater loyalty through personalization and curation by presenting the right selection of travel inventory to the right customer, at the right time.
Seamless User Experience and Simplified Redemption
Creating a seamless user experience is paramount for loyalty programs. An intuitive redemption process reduces friction, ensuring customers can effortlessly access their benefits. A user-friendly interface improves satisfaction, increases redemption rates, and enhances engagement. Technologies like mobile apps, AI, and machine learning can streamline redemption by offering personalized reward recommendations and simplifying the process. For example, Delta SkyMiles revamped its website and app to allow members to search for flights and redeem rewards with ease, leading to higher engagement. Marriott Bonvoy’s mobile-first approach provides personalized recommendations, making redemption more convenient. These tools ensure customers feel valued and keep coming back.
Leveraging Personalization in Engagement Tactics to Bolster Program Performance
Travel brands can boost travel personalization through social media, gamification, and communication. Social media content like travel tips, destination highlights, or member testimonials fosters personal connections, while interactive campaigns like photo contests create buzz. Gamification, such as awarding points for bookings or social sharing, leaderboards, or challenges like a “Travel Around the World” quest, makes engagement rewarding. Marriott Bonvoy and Hilton Honors use these tactics to promote offers and drive loyalty. Regular communication via newsletters, social media, and surveys, paired with educational content like travel guides or tips, builds community and trust. Personalized, segmented emails and milestone celebrations further strengthen loyalty. These strategies create engaging, personalized experiences that keep customers invested and loyal.
Measuring and Optimizing Engagement for Personalization in Travel
To ensure long-term success, track key metrics like active participation rate, redemption rate, frequency of interaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and churn rate. These indicators provide insights into customer involvement and satisfaction. Analyze data through segmentation, trend analysis, and feedback loops to identify areas for improvement. Strategies like personalization, gamification, exclusive rewards, regular communication, and A/B testing can optimize engagement. By continually refining your approach, you can keep customers actively involved and emotionally invested in your brand, enhancing personalization in travel.
Examples of Successful Personalization Strategies
Several companies have successfully implemented customized travel loyalty program strategies that boost engagement. Marriott Bonvoy, for example, leverages data on member preferences and travel history to offer personalized recommendations and exclusive deals, resulting in higher email open and conversion rates.
Similarly, Delta SkyMiles uses behavioral data to segment members and provide personalized perks like complimentary upgrades and priority boarding, enhancing satisfaction. Hilton Honors combines demographics and psychographics to offer tailored experiences, such as eco-friendly tours for adventure travelers or customized meeting packages for business travelers.
These examples demonstrate how curation and personalization in travel can create memorable experiences that drive loyalty.
Partner with the Right Supplier Network for Travel Personalization
The first step to curating and personalizing inventory is having access to a selection of high-margin travel products and services that you can package and sell. This, of course, allows you to offer your own core product or service. However, to capture and keep loyal customers, you also need to be able to directly sell, at a minimum, flights, hotels, cars, activities, or insurance (ideally at negotiated rates to maintain your profit margin).
But trying to partner with hundreds or even dozens of individual suppliers is both inefficient and extremely resource-intensive. The good news is you can turn to aggregators and tech platforms, like Switchfly’s, that give you immediate access to a vast array of travel inventory at direct rates. The result? You can offer a much wider selection of relevant options to your customers, and with higher yields as well.
Building Lasting Loyalty Through Personalization
When you can present the right selection of travel inventory to the right customer at the right time through travel personalization, they’ll reward you with loyalty and a bigger share of their travel wallet. Enhanced engagement through personalized rewards, seamless experiences, social media, gamification, and effective communication boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty. This approach turns occasional customers into lifelong advocates.
Switchfly can give you access to the technology platform you need to build true loyalty. Ready to take your loyalty program to the next level? Stay informed, stay innovative, and unlock the full potential of personalized travel rewards. Connect with us today.
