Special RepoRt : LoyaLt y , next
Virgin Hotels and its founder , Sir Richard Branson , are building a loyalty program around personalization and instant gratification , and that includes what guests find in their minibar .
noting that guests will be able to tell Virgin not only what they want in their minibar , but also what they never want to find there .
Virgin also promises a “ surprise and delight ” feature , rewarding guests with the little things — perhaps a big bag of that brand of potato chips that keep disappearing from their minibar .
Indeed , personalization and instant gratification are two key concepts the hotel industry is focusing on as hoteliers work to move their programs beyond free rooms and into an increasingly competitive landscape that revolves around the complex world of technology , big data and those tricky new customers , the Millennials .
“ Consumers are much more demanding ,” says Bob Behrens , vice president of rewards programs for The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co . “ Today they are interested in how do I get things yesterday .”
And while the days of using loyalty programs simply to collect points for free nights are in many cases no longer
www . hotelsmag . com March 2015 HOTELS 25