Expedia survey finds out that 32 per cent Indians with travel loyalty programmes redeem points once in six months
Expedia India has launched its loyalty programme, Expedia+. Members of Expedia+ can join the program for free and will earn points on all of their hotel or holiday activities bookings. The loyalty program provides additional benefits such as exclusive member-only deals and bonus offers. Expedia+ has three tiers: +blue, +silver and +gold. With the launch of Expedia+, the brand gets to recognise and award its regular loyal users and also entice prospective customers with an appealing value added proposition.
Expedia conducted a consumer survey on loyalty programme participation and discovered that 44 per cent of Indians would be open to enrolling into new travel loyalty programs and desired benefits include – complimentary upgrade of hotel/room category (82 per cent), free drinks & meals (77 per cent), hotel nights abroad (34 per cent), flexibility to redeem or gift points (27 per cent) and flexible check-in and check-out options (19 per cent). Indian travellers not only use their personal account for office travel bookings (61 per cent), but also volunteer to book travel for their extended family (73 per cent) in order to earn reward points. While 29 per cent of the travellers surveyed are still collecting reward points, 31 per cent have already redeemed their points once.
Expedia+ addresses the needs of the Indian consumer when considering a travel loyalty programme. Members will be able to redeem their points whenever they want, with no blackout dates for high season holidays and space capacity. Free membership automatically gives the consumers a +blue status, followed by +silver status after staying seven qualifying hotel room nights and +gold status after staying 15 qualifying hotel room nights. The +gold and +silver members enjoy additional benefits such as extra bonus points on every booking, plus free amenities or room upgrades if they book one of Expedia’s 1,800 VIP hotels in over 200 destinations globally. Travellers also get thrice the amount of points for booking via Expedia’s mobile application. Expedia+ points can be used for making booking for oneself as well as fellow travellers.
Manmeet Ahluwalia, marketing head, Expedia India said, “With the growing acceptance of e-commerce and evolution of the Indian travellers, the consumer has now started looking for value based programs that not only offer them great rewards but also exclusive benefits. Our survey on loyalty programme discovered that 47 per cent Indians are a part of two-three travel loyalty programmes, while 38 per cent participate in at least one programme. This clearly reflects that there is an appetite for loyalty programmes as the Indian consumer is growing smarter and wants to accumulate and avail benefits on every purchase. The Expedia+ programme offers exclusive deals for its consumers not only in India, but across the globe.”
“The Expedia+ programme will not only help us reach out to a larger number of customers but also expand our base of loyal customers in the country”, he added.