Global Hotel Alliance’s DISCOVERY program is a rising star in the loyalty and customer engagement space. By supporting the world’s largest alliance of independent hotels that encompasses nearly 600 hundred locations across 76 countries, the loyalty program truly lives up to its name. DISCOVERY relies on travel inspiration and education to encourage members to discover new destinations and indulge in authentic local experiences.
It is this prioritization of experiences over points that make DISOVERY so successful. Recently, Kristi Gole, Director of Loyalty Marketing for Global Hotel Alliance, took time to speak with Loyalty360 about how Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) makes good on its commitment to offer unique customer experiences to over 6 million members, and what winning a number of Loyalty360 Awards has meant for the brand.
What does customer loyalty mean to GHA?
Gole: At GHA, Loyalty is not specific to a program. It spans all aspects of the business. It’s creating an engaging customer experience and establishing a relationship. It’s about explaining how we offer something different, something that is of value. It’s also about instilling trust, showing we care, and creating that deeper connection with our customers that brings them back to us.
How is DISCOVERY able to personally engage so many members?
Gole: We’ve developed a sophisticated datamart that captures key demographic, geographic, preference, and behavioral data points for each member, and we are continually enhancing our ability to act on that information in our direct communications and at the hotel level. There is a great amount of systems development, data mapping and content planning that goes into it. Everything we do involves dynamic content with multi-version and multi-language messaging to deliver a more personalized experience for our members.
Global Hotel Alliance has recently won a number of awards including Loyalty 360’s 2015 Platinum Award for Excellence in Customer Experience & Engagement. So what does winning a Loyalty360 Award mean to Global Hotel Alliance? And how is it different from other awards that you have won?
Gole: We have been fortunate to win several industry awards over the past few years, and we are the most proud of these because they are based on the strategy and overall approach, and focus on the core of the program instead of just an effective ad or campaign. To be honest, Loyalty360 definitely stands out as doing the most with the award winners, and leveraging the companies who are winning. It really focuses on them and gleams best practices to share with your readership, which I don’t feel anyone else is doing. We very much respect Loyalty360 and appreciate participating in the awards each year.
Do the awards factor into GHA’s hotel acquisition strategy? Is it something that resonates with members, or potential members?
Gole: I think it does. It helps open the door to a conversation. Because GHA has spent zero dollars on advertising, everything is word of mouth. So we have grown very organically. The hotel brands that we talk to care about their reputation and their brand, and they care about quality. If someone from GHA approaches them, it makes them a bit concerned when they have not heard of us. But when we announce that we have won awards, and show the organizations that have recognized us, it gives us credibility. They see that the industry respects us and takes us seriously. And then they see the capabilities that we have and the sophisticated infrastructure that we have developed. After that, it becomes an easy sell if it is a good fit.
Where are you taking the program, and how do you plan to complete and excel in the future?
Gole: Right now we are focusing on editorial and content marketing. We just brought on an editor from Travel and Leisure, so now we have an expert travel curator to ensure we are focusing on and knows content that matters to our customers, and not from a business or brand perspective. I love that because that is the hardest piece – to truly not have a “sell” in the content. We know that customers don’t want to be sold to. So our content will be on their terms. Customers will listen if you give them something engaging. This is something that we can absolutely apply to our emails, to our website, and through social. We are taking our content up a notch to improve the customer experience.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.