Loyalty program taps business clients and travel elite

Most hotel groups are trying various awards programs to enhance customer loyalty, yet Starwood has taken it a step further by targeting meeting and travel professionals for a greater share of the global B2B business.

Its latest move is the new Starwood Preferred Guest Pro, or SPG Pro, a loyalty program that offers meeting and travel professionals elite status, upgrades and Starpoints for B2B business booked at any of its nearly 1,200 properties around the world.

As well, any SPG member who books a group stay, event or corporate business meeting, regardless of if they are a travel professional or not, will earn Starpoints and status for the business they influence.

According to Wendy Huang, vice-president of sales and marketing for Starwood Hotels and Resorts Greater China, SPG Pro was designed to leverage the strength of SPG, which today drives more than 50 percent of the company's occupancy and continues to shift consumer business to Starwood hotels.

She said that as new global travel patterns are driving more corporate, leisure and meetings business than ever before. Each 1 percent share shift adds $80 million in revenue.

According to Huang, B2B accounts for nearly 70 percent of Starwood's overall room revenue and is comprised of corporate travel, meetings, events, and leisure and wholesale travel.

Starwood's sales offices manage 1,200 global accounts from more than 30 offices around the world. The top 1 percent in accounts drives 40 percent of Starwood's B2B revenue.

In addition to travel pros, Starwood is also hoping to tap the B2B potential of its most loyal guests. According to Huang, 34 percent of SPG's elite platinum guests, who may be senior executives, business consultants or small business owners, book meetings and events in hotels.

Starwood only gets a 40 percent share of that part of their business, so it realized there was an opportunity to be seized as one-third of their SPG elite members are also B2B decision-makers.

Registered professionals, as well as SPG members who influence group, event and corporate travel, will begin earning Starpoints for business booked starting on Oct 15.

Meeting and travel professionals can register for SPG Pro at http://www.spg.com/pro.