Managing customer loyalty in hotel industry

<p style="text-align: justify;">Hotel industry in Russia is developing rapidly because of the growing role of Moscow as an international economic, cultural and political center. Taking into account the attractiveness of the market and its great potential for growth, the program of managing the customer loyalty (e.g. holding regular clients) has been of the current interest. In this paper, we would particularly consider the study of loyalty programs.&nbsp; The relevance of this research work is based on the outstanding market potential and the lack of applicable scientific data concerning loyalty programs in Russia in comparison to other countries.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of the study is to explore the methods of managing customer loyalty by the example of the hotel &laquo;Holiday Inn Suschevsky&raquo; and to work out improvement recommendations.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The following tasks were identified in order to succeed in the overall goal of the study: investigation of the theoretical basis of the main approaches towards managing customer loyalty and the construction of loyalty programs in hotel industry; examination of the existing loyalty program of the hotel Holiday Inn Suschevsky; comparative evaluation of its efficiency; the development of improvement recommendations of the loyalty programs for the hotel Holiday Inn Suschevsky.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The object of the study is the loyalty programs of the hotel chains working on the hotel market of Moscow.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The subject of the research is the methodology of managing customer loyalty that is used in the hotel Holiday Inn Suschevsky.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The general research method used in the study is benchmarking, which means creating business strategy for the company looking on the experience of the competitors on the market. [Bagiev Tarasevich, Ann, 1999, p.124] This method is relevant to this work because it serves the main purpose of the study as it helps to form recommendations for the examined hotel during the analysis of the best methods used in the market.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In order to use this method the major hotel chains that are direct competitors were selected, then the certain hotels included in each of them were analyzed. The method of in-depth interviews was used to collect the inside information about the loyalty program at the Holiday Inn Suschevsky</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The customer satisfaction indicators were collected from the consumers&rsquo; feedbacks on the portals Booking.com and Tripadvisor.ru in order to estimate the effectiveness of loyalty programs and the choice of reference companies in the market.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The results of the study were developed in order to improve the loyalty program of Holiday Inn Suschevsky. They include the introduction of four status levels in the loyalty program, an enhanced room for guests at Gold status; the decrease of the minimum amount of bonuses needed to get Free Night Awards; the establishment of a program providing the 5^th Night Free while redeeming 4 nights by bonuses and expanding the number of partner companies for the hotel in Russia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The practical significance of this work lies in the specific recommendations developed to improve the loyalty program at the Holiday Inn Suschevsky, as well as providing relevant data on the situation in the Moscow hotel market that can bring practical benefits for current and potential participants in the market. Moreover, the analysis provides an understanding of the structure of loyalty programs and their possible meaning for achieving the competitive position on the market.</p>