Hospitality Marketing Concepts (HMC) has released its findings on loyalty program member spending in the Middle East. Results of the analysis showed that loyalty program members in the Middle East were dining just as often as and spending significantly more per visit than a year earlier.
The company used its Loyalty Marketing Index for the Middle East based on three, four and five-star hotels located throughout the region to track trends in loyalty member spending for the first two months of 2003.
HMC program members averaged the same number of covers at the dining facilities of these hotels during January and February of 2003 as they did in January and February of 2002, however, members increased their spending by over seven percent per cover from a year earlier, revelaed data collected by HMC's ClubCentral tracking application.
“We were not surprised by the results,” said CEO of HMC, Mokhtar Ramadan. “We build a hotel's membership program largely with people who live or work near the property, people who will not be dependent on air travel to get to the hotel. We offer these customers, mostly local business persons, discounts and other benefits to use hotel's facilities.”
“The data shows that the membership base we build for a hotel provides consistent revenue even if there is an overall decrease in business travel spending,” said HMC's Vice-President and Area Director for the Middle East and West Asia, Robert Fadel. “Our programs help hotels protect themselves against the affects of geo-political issues or even overall economic downturn.”
HMC's Loyalty Marketing index for the Middle East includes hotels in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and United Arab Emirates (UAE). — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
