Westin Singapore: Tapping into the potential of loyal customers
Starwood Preferred Guest®, the 15 year-old loyalty programme from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, will be getting a revamp from October 15, 2014, as it extends its sights to its business-to-business customer base.
The new, comprehensive loyalty programme will target meeting and travel professionals. Members will be offered the SPG Elite Status, upgrades and Starpoints for B2B business booked at any of Starwood’s more than 1200 properties globally.
SPG Pro was designed to leverage on the strength of SPG, which today drives more than 50% of the company’s occupancy and continues to shift direct business to Starwood hotels.
With 27 offices in the Asia Pacific, this region makes up 1/3 of the brand’s global reach. The top 1% of their accounts deliver US$40 million in B2B revenue for Starwood.
When you’re an SPG Pro, it comes back to you – that’s what Starwood is marketing. It is the first programme to allow members to book using points, without any blackout dates – in this round of improvements, this policy has been expanded to claiming complimentary flights using points, without any blackout dates. Members are also allowed to redeem points for ‘money-cant-buy’ experiences – such as a private meet-and-greet session with Lewis Hamilton at the Singapore F1 Grand Prix. Starwood promotes a unique experience for their guests.
This comes as Starwood realised the potential of their very loyal members. “While one third of our elite members are key decision makers, Starwood only gets a 40% share of that part of their business,” says Mark Vondrasek, Starwood’s Senior Vice President of Distribution, Loyalty and Partnerships Marketing.
“We realised there was a great opportunity to recognise our guests’ business holistically, beyond just our guest room.”
SPG’s aim is to build greater stickiness with their loyal guests, who in turn can then become an extension of their sales team.
Further rewarding elite members, those who reach 500 booked room nights will be offered a lifetime platinum membership with SPG.
Starwood’s Senior Vice President for Sales, APAC, Alison Taylor, says, “This is to recognise the guest’s past support for the brand. We understand that after a certain time, guests’ travelling pattern might change – they might not travel as much anymore. But we shouldn’t penalize them because of that. They should still be rewarded as loyal supporters of the brand.”
Alison Taylor: Recognising guest’s past support for the brand.
The launch of SPG Pro also sees the introduction of a new set of creative and unconventional marketing campaign for Starwood. Traditionally B2B marketing used to be filled with photos of empty ballrooms, banquet tables and a handshake between a “sales executive” and a “client”. But SPG Pro’s campaign is set to take a lifestyle approach. They are now letting real customers and real testimonials take centre stage, featuring a series of “behind-the-scenes” photos where the professionals are on the job. The campaign looks to showcase the passion these people reflect in their everyday jobs.
