Two levels of collaboration:

1. Collaboration among Loyalty Partners

While companies continue to spend well over $1.3 billion on loyalty programs, most do not tap into their full potential. This is primarily because they have a Field of Dreams “if you build it they will come” mentality. Yes, guests may “come” to your loyalty program. But membership does not equal participation - and participation is the holy grail of loyalty programs. In fact, recent research shows that on average people belong to 14.1 loyalty programs but participate in only 6.2 of them.

Developing collaborative, multi-partner loyalty programs gives hotel marketers the insights and actionable data they need to fuel the highly coveted participation. By moving beyond transactional-based programs - which take a more simplistic view of customer behavior via looking at hotel-related purchases - collaborative programs open up new lines of communication between business partners that reveal a comprehensive, 360° view of consumer behavior. Loyalty leaders then use the predictive power of past actions to estimate and influence future behavior and drive participation.

The Kroger Co, the largest traditional supermarket retailer in the U.S., is a great example of a company that has linked with an expanding number ...