Travel loyalty: Cognitive connections

Building a cognitive approach to travel loyalty

In the first installment of the travel loyalty series, “Discount discontents: How loyalty programs can deepen engagement, improve profits and drive brand allegiance,” we concluded travel providers should balance popular loyalty rewards with specific enhancements to engage travelers.1 In this report, we extend the concept by asserting that leading-edge, cognitive-computing tools can be used to increase intimacy with both the most frequent travelers and oft-overlooked occasional travelers. Our recent survey reveals travelers — even loyalty-program members — often feel estranged from a travel provider’s brand. In response, providers should focus on building loyalty programs that facilitate a cognitive version of travel self-service. This can be accomplished by harvesting data from a wider variety of sources, assessing the collected data to generate specific insights about traveler preferences and patterns, and delivering these insights to all relevant touchpoints. This cognitive approach to loyalty can lead to more personalized interactions and help travel brands form meaningful relationships with more loyal travelers.

Most travel providers have placed an outsized share of attention and investment on top-tier travelers for decades, lavishing them with everything from well-stocked private lounges to service by more highly trained and available employees. Since top travelers drive a disproportionate share of both revenue and profit, such strategies seemed sensible. This concerted focus, however, left the larger group of relatively infrequent travelers to suffer the countless indignities of cost-reduction efforts. While travel got better for the loyal elite, service, comfort and convenience deteriorated for everyone else.

The advent and success of travel loyalty programs, and the subsequent emergence and growth of travel self-service, allowed providers, in theory, to counter-balance the service and experience inequities between so-called “elite travelers” and “the masses.” Self-service solutions for everything from booking to check-in were designed to be the great equalizer by providing infrequent travelers access to the same tools and processes as those enjoyed by the elite. Loyalty programs ,with their non-travel spend rewards, offered occasional travelers the opportunity to earn some of the perks and privileges enjoyed by the most seasoned travelers, who use frequent travel to gain access to airport lounges and executive floors.

Unfortunately, neither of these programs worked. Top-tier travelers ended up sharing “their” privileges, and infrequent travelers were still reduced to sitting in the backs of crowded planes or trying to sleep in hotel rooms next to noisy elevators. The result? Loyalty programs have failed to improve traveler allegiance, and self-service has deepened the rift between travelers and brands.