Travel industry cannot keep obsessing about doing a ‘re’ to all problems

With vaccine booster shots ushering in the new year, 2022 brings on positivity and promise. We are seeing businesses in the region experiencing an age of ‘re- ‘.

The Omicron variant has made its way across the globe for a little over a month now, and with governments and healthcare centres monitoring its effects, it is a sigh of relief to see this variant is not as threatening as the Delta. We also see health authorities getting better at - and more effective when - dealing with new variants and their consequences. Whilst we are building an improved post-pandemic world in an age of re-doing, re-imagining, re-developing, re-engaging, the question we must ask is, “Can we do things better, smarter and simpler?”

Travel restrictions and lockdowns caused by the pandemic have been one of the most significant professional and personal setbacks. For us making a living by providing and improving loyalty programmes to travellers, these, naturally, have also been impacted. Travel loyalty programmes are principally designed for frequent travellers who can redeem their points for a free flight or a hotel room. With the pandemic putting a pause on travel, it has changed travellers’ relationships with loyalty points.

If brands want customers to stick around, they should rethink what they offer. Brands need to draw a new relationship based on new terms, with better propositions, and more enhanced ways to communicate and engage. So much so that customer loyalty stays intact and is resilient in the wake of another or continuation of the current crisis.

Brands need to build loyalty strategically where they merge loyalty and technology. Integrating new technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) into customer loyalty programmes can improve customer experience and build loyalty by improving relevance, accurately predicting behaviour and preference, and reducing programme operating costs. AI is not the only technology that should be implemented.

They can also double as a currency wallet that travellers can use across hotels, lounges and stores to collect and redeem points. With everything in the post-pandemic world going digital, this is a strategic way to stay one step ahead by providing customers with a seamless solution to improve their experience while collecting and spending loyalty points without adding another card to their wallet. Another trend that is that most things are now prefixed with an emphatic ‘re- ‘: Re-start, re-imagine, re-engage, re-define, re-engineer.

Travellers are reminiscing about what their travels used to look like pre-pandemic. Various travel solutions and technology companies are simply re-setting their products to provide their clients with merely a refresh of the services that met their travel demands before the pandemic. Picking up from where we left off in early 2020 and going back to the way things were might seem like a sensible approach.

However, now is the perfect opportunity to start afresh and with a genuine clean slate in many ways. For example, the change we are seeing with travellers’ relationship with loyalty programmes has also impacted their ability to apply for elite status goals. We are seeing popular hotels, as well as many airlines, reducing their elite status qualifications to manage this change. But that won’t remain a sustainable solution for brands. New thinking is needed.

Starting anew also means keeping in mind that the last two years have created significant societal changes in opinions and attitudes, stated and unconscious preferences, and commercial dynamics. Brands are courting customers on every side, with new ways to engage them, starting from the tactical (like special offers from new partners) to the strategic (like impactful paid loyalty programs).

Many proven tools have been prevalent long before the pandemic, but maybe not be fully endorsed by loyalty managers. In light of changing market context and of more demanding customers, brands must focus on such innovative products and creative solutions that can deliver immediately but also provide a long-term programme foundation.

While brands may try to recapture the heady days of 2019, it might not be the most exciting way forward. Instead, brands should rather bravely embrace a new future that will be nothing like the past!

Re- is wrong; New is where it’s at!