Comparing Loyalty Program Tiering Strategies: An investigation from the gaming industry

Loyalty programs are popular marketing strategies developed for the purpose of attracting, maintaining, and enhancing customer relationships. Due to the explosive worldwide growth of, and increased competition within, the casino industry has compelled contemporary casino marketers to rely more heavily on loyalty programs to increase guest allegiance and the frequency of repeat visits from their customers. Despite the widespread usage of loyalty programs across various gaming businesses in Las Vegas, its effectiveness has not quite been validated. The purpose of this study is to examine customers’ behavioral loyalty within the Las Vegas gaming industry and examine the effectiveness of a specific loyalty program using secondary data obtained from a Las Vegas casino hotel. Specifically, this study segmented loyalty program members to investigate the effectiveness of a casino loyalty program’s tiering strategy on members’ purchase behavior. Further, this study employed Recency-Frequency-Monetary (RFM) analysis to examine two different types of tiering strategies

Database Marketing In Travel And Tourism

An increasing number of organisations are developing customer databases in a bid to get closer to their customers and gain competitive advantage. This report investigates the practice of database marketing among different travel and tourism sectors, including airlines, hotels, museums and tour operators, and draws on UK and international examples. It compares direct marketing and database marketing and examines the different levels of sophistication at which database marketing can be practiced, the role of customer loyalty schemes, the ways in which a database can be segmented, the role of consumer data profiling companies and current developments in database marketing. The use of database marketing for customer retention and business acquisition is also investigated. In order to ensure true customer relationship building it is vital for the industry to leverage the information on their databases and provide customer recognition through the delivery of personalised service. Business acquisition through customer retention is likely to be a key strategy in future through the use of data-mining and cross-selling techniques. The report concludes that organisations must create a new marketing environment by moving away from transaction marketing towards the principles of customer relationship management

A Paradigm Shift from Optimal Play to Mental Comfort: A Perspective from the Game Refinement Theory

The game refinement theory focuses on the game designer perspective, where its application in various types of games provides evidence of the occurring paradigm shift. Utilizing the logistical model of game outcome uncertainty, it provides a platform for incorporating gamified experience observed in games to be adopted in domains outside of game while retaining the context of the game. Making games as a testbed, the implications of the game refinement theory have been observed in the educational and business perspective, while further explored its utility in interpreting some states of the human mind. In addition, a holistic view of design in games and in the real-world environments was discussed, where the prospects of the game refinement theory were also highlighted

Evidence from hospitality loyalty programs

Rita, P., Tiago, M. T. B., & Caetano, J. (2023). The theory-practice research gains from big data: Evidence from hospitality loyalty programs. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2022-0646 --- This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project – UIDB/04152/2020 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS, research grants UIDB/04521/2020 of the Advance/CSG, ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management; and UIDB/00685/2020 of the Centre of Applied Economics Studies of the Atlantic, School of Business and Economics of the University of the Azores.Purpose The hospitality industry values segmentation and loyalty programs (LPs), but there is limited research on new methods for segmenting loyalty program members, so managers often rely on conventional techniques. This study aims to use big data-driven segmentation methods to cluster customers and provide a new solution for customer segmentation in hotel LPs. Design/methodology/approach Using the k-means algorithm, this study examined 498,655 profiles of guests enrolled in a multinational hotel chain’s loyalty program. The objective was to cluster guests according to their consumption behavior and monetary value and compare data-driven segments based on brand preferences, demographic data and monetary value with loyalty program tiers. Findings This study shows that current tier-based LPs lack features to improve customer segmentation, and some high-tier members generate less revenue than low-tier members. Therefore, more attention should be given to truly valuable customers. Practical implications Hotels can segment LP members to develop targeted campaigns and uncover new insights. This will help to transform LPs to make them more valuable and profitable and use differentiated rewards and strategies. Originality/value As not all guests or hotel brands benefit equally from LPs, additional segmentation is required to suit varying guest behaviors. Hotel managers can use data mining techniques to develop more efficient and valuable LPs with personalized strategies and rewards.authorsversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Loyalty Program in the Alcohol Beverage Industry: A Preliminary Look

In the United States the alcoholic beverage industry has created one of the largest markets in the world. Alcohol is a taxed and well-regulated product most profitable for large chain retailers who continuously dominate the industry. This research paper reports the story of loyalty programs throughout the beverage industries. Additionally, by analyzing a database of 107 top alcohol beverage retailers, this research paper provides a profile of the market trends for alcohol beverage retailers in the United States. Secondly, this research aims to shed light on how loyalty programs form a part of the current market trends in the alcohol beverage industry

The Implications of Bank Loyalty Card Programs for Hotel Owners

This thesis looks into hotel loyalty programs and the relationships between the involved players: hotel brands, hotels, guests, and financial institutions (co-branded credit card partners). Past studies have been conducted around loyalty programs structures and their associated value to guests. To better understand the intricacies of loyalty programs, phone interviews were conducted with industry professionals. This thesis examines the business relationships of the industry players and the flow of loyalty points. Hotel owners emerge as the net losers from the expansion and growth of these loyalty programs

Customer Loyalty: A New Look at the Benefits of Improving Segmentation Efforts with Rewards Programs

Reward programs continue to proliferate nearly three decades after American Airlines launched the modern day customer reward program in 1981. Due to rapid growth in these programs in the hospitality sector, it appears that many firms have fallen into the trap of developing “me too” loyalty programs that provide little differentiation from the competition. The most telling sign of these copycat programs is that the basis for most program tier structures is based on industry convention rather than a strategic analysis of a firm’s customer base and the needed differentiation in the marketplace. To demonstrate a data-driven customer segmentation strategy for a loyalty program, this study collected customer data from a major international hotel chain to track spending in three categories: rooms, food and beverage, and such supplemental services as the spa or health club. The resulting customer segments, which were based on common demographic criteria and spending patterns on these three spending categories, showed a weak match with the current three tier system offered in the chain’s rewards program. In fact, some tiers included vastly different market segments that had different spending and stay frequency. Although too many additional tiers would probably invite complications, it’s possible to create or augment loyalty program tiers that more closely match customers’ travel habits. One goal would be to encourage certain high-spending guests to visit more frequently. Creative, flexible rewards should reflect guests’ desires, but should not involve price concessions

The benefit of guest loyalty programmes

The aim of this research is to find out what kind of guest loyalty programme Apollo Hotels and Resorts should implement for their individual leisure guests in order to gain more loyal leisure guests. In the literature review of this research, the following aspects are discussed: a loyalty programme and its use; the sort of loyalty programmes; the effects of a loyalty programme; and the wishes and needs of a leisure guest. Surveys were divided among 46 leisure guests of Apollo Hotels and Resorts in order to collect data on consumer demand for a guest loyalty programme. The data shows that it is highly recommended for Apollo Hotels and Resorts to implement a leisure guest loyalty programme based on tiers, with the possibility to redeem the saved credits for discounts at Apollo Hotels and Resorts. Furthermore, the data shows it is important that members of the guest loyalty programme receive special services not available to non-members.Keywords: guest loyalty programme, leisure guests, loyalty programme based on tiers, discounts, personal servic

“Your loyalty is rewarded”: a study of hotel loyalty program in Malaysia / Chong Ka Leong

Hotel loyalty programs had shown their importance in the global market and Malaysia is following up this trend. Yet, many of the information from the perspective of customers are still yet to be discovered by researchers. The purpose of this study is to discover the current state of satisfaction and perception of hotel loyalty program and finding out the more preferred program attributes as well as the significant factor associated with the level of satisfaction in the context of Malaysia. A total of 109 survey responses were collected. The result had shown that Malaysian consumers were overall rather satisfied with the current hotel loyalty program and their satisfaction was found highly correlated with the reward value and reward timing provided which was also ranked as most important by the respondents. This study concluded that Malaysians were mostly seeking for direct or immediate reward like monetary discount and least favored on point collection program. Lastly, the Malaysian users were found to have a positive perception on hotel loyalty program that they found the program to be useful and able to provide benefit or advantage to them

“Your Loyalty is Rewarded”: a study of Hotel Loyalty Program in Malaysia

Hotel loyalty programs had shown their importance in the global market and Malaysia is following up this trend. Yet, many of the information from the perspective of customers are still yet to be discovered by researchers. The purpose of this study is to discover the current state of satisfaction and perception of hotel loyalty program and finding out the more preferred program attributes as well as the significant factor associated with the level of satisfaction in the context of Malaysia. A total of 109 survey responses were collected. The result had shown that Malaysian consumers were overall rather satisfied with the current hotel loyalty program and their satisfaction was found highly correlated with the reward value and reward timing provided which was also ranked as most important by the respondents. This study concluded that Malaysians were mostly seeking for direct or immediate reward like monetary discount and least favoured on point collection program. Lastly, the Malaysian users were found to have a positive perception on hotel loyalty program that they found the program to be useful and able to provide benefit or advantage to them