Your Role In Creating Loyalty
Where our Properties Play a Role
Our properties are instrumental in making I Prefer a success and fueling our future growth – resulting in more revenue to you.
We have identified four primary areas of concentration - Enrollments, Member Rate, Recognition, and Rewards.
Member Enrollments
The first area of concentration from properties is to support new member enrollments by including information and links to I Prefer on your property website, ensuring the I Prefer member rates are loaded and open, and training your teams to enroll new members on property.
During each guest interaction, extending I Prefer membership and selling its benefits is a win-win opportunity!
Guests are motivated to join the I Prefer Program when they learn how they can personally benefit from it.
Four Quick and Easy Guest Enrollment Talking Points :
- Membership to I Prefer Hotel Rewards is free.
- Members receive instant benefits and are rewarded for stays at over 575 participating properties.
- Frequent travelers earn elevated status and benefits through membership.
- Points can be redeemed for free nights and Reward Certificates.
Member Rates
Another way you play a role in delivering I Prefer is by providing exclusive member rates and offers – on Preferredhotels.com and on your property websites – providing that immediate gratification in the form of an offer they can’t get anywhere else.
Let’s look at what happens when a shopper clicks on hotels.com. They are taken to a page of results with MULTIPLE hotels – yes, yours is at the top, but it is quickly followed by competitors who might offer a lower rate, higher review rating, or both!
The OTA has taken your booking and put them back into the shopping process all over again. So, when you consider your costs for OTA bookings – consider all the bookings you have LOST because the OTA is marketing your competitor right alongside you – from YOUR link!
In the above image, you are seeing metasearch results in Google from a real property. As you can see, the major OTAs are all offering the unrestricted rate of $441 for this property. However, because this property is part of I Prefer and offers the I Prefer member rate, it shows up at $418 – and being rational, this traveler is highly likely to click through on the lower rate from a reputable site. When this traveler clicks on the Preferred Hotels link- they go RIGHT to your booking page – and you capture the conversion!
Recognition
The Recognition component assures the member that we appreciate them for choosing an I Prefer Hotel and we deliver consistent member benefits during each stay.
This is where the rubber hits the road. Welcoming the member by name, thanking them for their loyalty, and ensuring your team is trained and delivering the benefits. Just like any other program, we have made our members a promise and rely on our hotels to deliver on that promise. This is what drives loyalty when done correctly.
As a standard benefit, I Prefer Members receive special amenities during their stay.
These amenities offer your property the chance to showcase your independent brand and local specialties.
The Gold & Titanium welcome amenity must have a high perceived value AND the amenity should be unique to relevant I Prefer Members only and not a complimentary gift offered to all guests.
Rewards
In addition to the recognition piece, of course, it is a loyalty REWARDS program, the rewards are important! The Rewards component allows our members to earn points for every eligible stay booked at an I Prefer hotel. Our standard point offering is 10 points per $1 USD in reservation revenue. Gold & Titanium Members receive bonus points during their stay.
These rewards turn into Reward Certificates and Reward Nights, again driving the I Prefer Member back to your hotel.
