The 4 Pillars of a Loyalty Strategy to Drive Growth in Tourism Companies
In today’s hyper-competitive tourism landscape, acquisition costs keep rising while guest expectations grow more complex. Many businesses are still stuck running loyalty like it’s 2005, handing out points, discounts, or generic perks, and wondering why retention is flat.
The truth? Loyalty has matured. Companies that understand how to evolve their approach are seeing measurable gains in revenue, stronger guest engagement, and more sustainable ecosystems. In this article, we’ll explore the Loyalty Ladder and the 4 pillars that can transform loyalty from a marketing tactic into a true growth engine for tourism companies.
The Loyalty Ladder: From Transactions to Transformation
Loyalty evolves through three levels:
Transactional Loyalty → Points, discounts, free nights. Short-term and forgettable. Guests see it as a price reduction, not value. Hotels dependent on OTA perks often remain at this stage.
Hybrid Loyalty → Combines monetary + emotional rewards. Resorts add spa or gastronomy perks, DMOs integrate museums or restaurants. Stronger engagement, but still reactive.
Experiential Loyalty → Loyalty as strategy. Fully phygital (QR, GPS, IoT), community-based, sustainability-driven. Guests become ambassadors. ROI is measurable and significant.
Question for leaders: Where would you place your business today — Transactional, Hybrid, or Experiential?
For instance, loyalty members now represent over 52% of hotel occupancy in the U.S., with memberships growing faster than room supply.
The 4 Pillars of a Loyalty Strategy
1. Revenue: Loyalty as a Profit Lever
In tourism, we spend enormous amounts of money to acquire guests, and then let them leave without ensuring they’ll return. That’s not just a lost opportunity, it’s a direct hit on profitability.
The Problem: Rising CAC & OTA Dependence
Loyalty done right is not a marketing cost, it’s a profit lever. It reduces acquisition costs, grows ticket value, and ensures repeat visits. For tourism companies, loyalty is not just about keeping guests happy, it’s about protecting margins and creating scalable, predictable growth.
Acquiring a new customer costs 5–7x more than keeping one (Harvard Business Review).
OTAs take 15–25% commission per booking. For a hotel with 5M€ annual revenue, that’s 1M€ lost to intermediaries.
High seasonality in tourism makes dependency on paid channels even riskier.
Solution - How Loyalty Generates Revenue:
Reduce CAC
-> Direct booking rewards divert traffic from OTAs.
-> Referrals from loyal guests replace costly ad campaigns.
Increase Average Ticket & Upselling
-> Loyalty nudges guests to consume more: F&B, spa, tours, retail.
-> +12–20% increase in average ticket size.
Boost Repeat Visits
-> Guests connected emotionally and rewarded for engagement are more likely to come back +25% repeat visits.
Extend Revenue Across Partners
-> Loyalty programs that include local shops, restaurants, and attractions keep revenue circulating in the ecosystem.
-> DMOs or hotel groups can monetize partner participation (B2B revenue).
Increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
-> Loyalty extends revenue beyond a single booking.
-> Guests generate income over multiple visits, referrals, and upsells.
-> Impact: CLV can be 2–3x higher when guests are part of a structured loyalty program.
2. Data: Loyalty as Business Intelligence
Tourism companies already collect data every day, but it’s fragmented, siloed, and often underused. The challenge is not the lack of data, but the lack of validated, reliable & actionable data that can actually transform the guest experience.
The Problem: Fragmented Data Ecosystems
In tourism, data is everywhere but insights are nowhere. By embedding loyalty into the guest journey, you move from fragmented systems to validated, reliable, transactional data, and ultimately to the holy grail: real customer experience data that lets you design the journeys guests truly want.
Customer data is spread across multiple systems, often disconnected:
PMS (Property Management Systems): booking, check-in, room nights.
CRS (Central Reservation Systems): reservations from multiple channels
CRM (Customer Relationship Management): marketing campaigns, contact details.
POS (Point of Sale): restaurants, bars, shops inside hotels/resorts.
OTA Platforms: external bookings (with limited visibility).
Event & Ticketing Systems: access control, attendance, upsells.
Surveys & Feedback Tools: reviews, NPS, guest satisfaction.
IoT & On-Site Devices: smart locks, energy meters, wearables, kiosks.
Result: A hotel, resort, or DMO ends up with islands of data, none of them telling the full customer story.
Why you need Data Validated, Reliable & Transactional?
Validated: for no duplicates, no fake profiles, loyalty ensures data comes from real users.
Reliable: for directly linked to verified actions (not assumptions).
Transactional: for not just intent, but actual behavior (they booked, visited, purchased, redeemed). The Prize: Real Customer Experience Data!
Why secure and reliable data is need?
You can finally measure what experiences resonate.
Personalization stops being guesswork.
Marketing shifts from “spray and pray” to precision engagement.
3. Experience: Loyalty as Guest Engagement
Every experience in tourism has three natural stages: before, during, and after. The problem is that most loyalty programs only focus on the ‘after’, rewarding a purchase. But the real value comes when you engage guests across the entire journey.
Customer journey for any experience:
When loyalty touches the before, during, and after, it stops being a marketing tactic and becomes part of the guest experience itself, creating connection, community, and growth that no discount program can buy.
Before: Anticipation, planning, booking, the moment when guests are deciding where to go and how to spend.
During: The core of the stay, visit, or event, where memories are made.
After: Reflection, feedback, and the opportunity for repeat visits or advocacy.
4. Sustainability: Loyalty as Impact and Differentiation
Reward responsible choices. Tourism is an interconnected ecosystem (hotels, culture, commerce, communities, mobility) Every business decision creates ripple effects. Will yours be passive… or purposefully positive?
How Loyalty Creates Positive Impact
Every tourism business, from a boutique hotel to a national DMO, has the power to create positive impact. By embedding sustainability into loyalty strategies, you don’t just reduce costs or tick ESG boxes. You activate an entire ecosystem of partners, commerce, culture, hospitality, events, and turn them into co-creators of value. That is the true power of sustainability as a loyalty pillar.
1. Reward Eco-Actions
Guests earn points for sustainable behaviors: using public transport, shopping locally, reducing water/energy use, recycling.
Example: Eco-resorts gamify “eco-points” for guests who refill bottles or use shared mobility.
2. Activate Local Commerce & Culture
Partners (restaurants, artisans, cultural venues) become part of the loyalty ecosystem.
Guests redeem points in local businesses → money circulates locally, supporting jobs and traditions.
3. Involve Events & Communities
Festivals reward sustainable participation: using reusable cups, recycling, exploring via walking routes.
Community programs: locals as ambassadors, promoting cultural or eco-initiatives.
4. Measure & Report
With PERS, every action is tokenized → you get real data on sustainable impact.
ESG metrics become part of your business intelligence, not a side report.
Why Sustainability is a Loyalty Pillar
Tourism touches many stakeholders: local shops, guides, artists, restaurants, transport, cultural institutions.
Today’s guests expect responsibility: 70% say they’d choose sustainable options if rewarded (Booking.com).
ESG alignment is no longer optional, investors, governments, and travelers demand measurable action.
Loyalty programs can be the engine that makes sustainability visible, engaging, and rewarding.
Webinar The 4 Pillars of a Loyalty Strategy to Drive Growth in Tourism Companies - with Angela Bustillos CMO at eXplorins
The companies that will lead tourism in the next decade are not the ones spending the most on acquisition, but the ones building loyalty ecosystems that reduce costs, increase margins, and create measurable impact. The choice is clear: stay transactional, or turn loyalty into your most powerful driver of growth."
