Nexus of Hotel Loyalty Programs and Social Media: A Conceptual Attempt
The paper was presented to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) at the 2012 APTA Conference in Taipei, Taiwan, which was held June 25-28. Copyright © the authors. All rights reserved.
Abstract
This study is a conceptual attempt to bridge the advantages of social media and the vast customer base established through hotel loyalty programs. The authors argued that the key of such partnership lies in customer data management. Social media and loyalty programs can provide managers with different sets of customer data, such as customer characteristics and customer purchase pattern respectively. With the nexus with the sets of data, managers are able to gain a holistic view of customers that is not available before. Details of such partnership and possible strategies to utilize the partnership were also discussed.
