WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

(CINCINNATI, OH) -- It isn't news anymore but a Cincinnati, OH-based research group now makes it official:  Hotel customers and airlines travelers have lost  a chunk of  interest in the industries' highly-promoted rewards programs.

Colloquy, a 19-year-old online researcher and magazine publisher, states travel industry loyalty marketing and rewards programs have seen a 31.2% decline in active participation since 2007

Kelly Hlavinka

Translated, Colloquy partner Kelly Hlavinka says the 31.2% drop means the general population actively participated in 1.5 Travel-related loyalty programs in 2009 compared to 2.18 programs in 2007, when Colloquy last completed similar cross-demographic research on loyalty marketing perceptions in the Travel, Financial Services and Retail industries.

Overall, however, consumer participation in rewards programs in the U.S. market has jumped 19% since 2007, the group's research shows.

Hlavinka says her company's latest travel-specific results indicate that customers are consolidating their spend with fewer hotels and fewer airlines as the travel-whenever-you-want-for-business "bubble" has burst, and Road Warriors no longer are able to earn elite status in multiple programs.

"These numbers shouldn't be daunting to travel loyalty industry pioneers who launched programs in the early 1980s in another acute recession," says Hlavinka.

"One preferred hotel and one preferred airline, that's how loyalty programs were supposed to work all along. Savvy travel marketers will see the opportunity to lock consolidating Road Warriors into their particular program, knowing they'll emerge in a much stronger competitive position when travel ramps up again."

Hlavinka says another key finding "attests to the importance consumers attach to loyalty programs, despite challenges presented by the worst recession in the post-World War II era.

"Fully 32.3% of consumers said the recession has made their participation in Retail rewards programs more important.

"In the Financial Services sector that number was 23.9%. In Travel, reflecting corporate mandates to cut travel and entertainment budgets, a slightly lower 21.5% of respondents said rewards programs are more important in the recession economy." 

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