How loyal are travelers to airlines or hotels? Not much, a new survey by Deloitte says.
Just 8% of travelers surveyed in October by the professional services firm say they're loyal to the same hotel brand. Only 14% say they're loyal to the same airline.
The findings don't bode well for hotels and airlines, which invest millions to attract and reward travelers with their frequent-flier and frequent-guest programs in an effort to attract return customers.
"The current environment for building loyalty really isn't creating long-term sustainable loyalty," says Adam Weissenberg, vice chairman and U.S. leader of Deloitte's travel, hospitality and leisure sector.
Price, comfort and service are driving decisions more than loyalty programs, the survey of 4,000 travelers to be released on Tuesday finds.
When picking airlines, most travelers say they look first at safety, value and whether flights are on time. When choosing hotels, they look at price, whether there's free parking, comfort and location. Loyalty programs rank near the bottom of influencing factors.
"There's been a real erosion in loyalty, and when you think about why that's happened, it is because there's so much more information out there today," Weissenberg says.
Weissenberg says the wealth of information has made it easy for consumers to comparison shop and switch their loyalty for a better deal. Almost 70% of survey respondents say they are members of more than one loyalty program.
Airlines were the first adopters of loyalty programs among travel companies in the 1980s.
They were effective for a time, Weissenberg says. But once one airline and hotel started offering freebies, their competitors followed. "Those were all things that were very easy to copy," he says.
Customers now often complain that it's not easy to accrue or redeem miles and points, or to achieve elite status.
To read full article from USA Today, Click Here.
