Travel rewards platform Arrivia has revealed a growing interest in loyalty programmes that provide travel benefits.
The company recently released insights from its latest survey across 2 200 consumers and over US 100 assorted loyalty programmes.
The report showed that 30% more brands were offering travel rewards in 2023 than in 2021, and there was a 23% increase in programmes providing booking capabilities.
Giving consumer members the means to book all travel components on a single site is increasingly important for loyalty programmes, with a 12% increase in this prioritisation over 2021. Recently, several loyalty programmes have been redesigned to offer more travel-related activities, accommodation and travel insurance.
The survey found that brands’ primary goals for their loyalty programmes in 2024 are:
* encouraging existing members to move up loyalty tiers,
* increasing total spending through their loyalty programmes, and
* introducing new rewards or earning-redemption options.
One in five loyalty programme providers report that demonstrating the value of rewards is their biggest challenge, resulting in difficulty communicating value to members.
Introducing new redemption options and maintaining appropriate customer service levels were highlighted as additional challenges for loyalty programmes.The programmes fear that if they do not consistently offer new redemption opportunities, members are unlikely to redeem loyalty currencies and rewards and could then fail to remain engaged and continue spending within their programmes.
The report also identified several areas in which there was a disconnect between consumers and loyalty providers:
- 43% of consumers are looking for discounts on everyday purchases yet, only 25% of loyalty programmes see this demand for discounts.
- 8% of consumers value status perks, but only 18% of providers rely on status perks to maintain loyalty.
- 20% of brands fear poor website user experience, while just 5% of consumers reported experiencing this.
- 21% of consumers say they are frustrated by the complexities of point-earning and point-redeeming, however, only 14% of loyalty programme providers see their processes as complex.
- While 44% of consumers say their loyalty programmes are overpriced, and 23% are uncertain they are receiving the best value for money when booking travel through loyalty programmes, only around 20% of loyalty brands feel that demonstrating the value of their programmes is their biggest challenge.
- 50% of consumers say they want better earning and redemption capabilities from their programmes. This includes the ability to use points to reduce the overall expense of trips (46%), booking discounted travel through loyalty programme platforms (31%) and using loyalty memberships to secure discounts with travel providers (29%). On the other hand, only 30% of businesses are planning to improve the flexibility of their loyalty point currency.
