Welcome to Issue No. 020 of Sojourn. An independent publication delivering strategic interpretation for leaders shaping the future of travel and hospitality.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. When people talk about a place they keep going back to, they almost never mention the program. They talk about the place: how it felt, how it moved, what it was like to be there. The points don’t come up.
Interpretation: The loyalty program model was built on a real insight: reward return behavior and you’ll see more of it. That still holds. But it operates downstream of a more basic question, does someone actually want to come back? A guest who already feels at home somewhere doesn’t need an incentive to return. Or do they? They just go. Points can tip a decision. They don’t create the pull that makes someone want to go back in the first place.
There’s a difference between a guest who returns because their status is there and a guest who returns because going somewhere else would feel like starting over. One is maintained, the other is earned.
