Value vs Cost
The target of any Frequent Customer Program is to entice people back to your hotel. In simple terms, the way to do this is to offer incentives that have the highest possible perceived value for the lowest possible cost. For example, consider which sounds more attractive to you: 10% off a weekend break, or a weekend break that includes a free room upgrade and a bottle of wine in the room. (Most people would find the second offer more attractive.) Now consider which costs the hotel the most. The real cost to the hotel of a bottle of wine is probably €5 or €6, while if the package normally costs €149 PPS, the cost of the 10% discount is €30.

What should you offer?
Frequent Customer Schemes should pass the “30 Second Test”: if someone met one of your customers on the street and asked what benefits they have from being a member of the program, they should be able to list them in 30 seconds. Offer clear, tangible benefits that only members of the frequent customer scheme can obtain. Ideally the program should not simply give something away that you might have sold anyway, but rather encourage customers to try something that they might not normally think of doing.

The most common approaches are:

• Offer your frequent customers a series of unique, special events during the year such as Wine Tasting Evenings or Menu Testing Evenings
• Use your inventory to make discounted offers

In all cases the target is to offer something with the highest perceived value for the lowest possible cost.

E-zines Offers to Frequent Customer
When you send an e-zine that includes offers to your frequent customers, there are two main approaches:

• You can tell them to ring and book. (This has the added attraction of avoiding  booking fees.) A good way of doing this is to advise the customer to quote a  reference, ie Frequent Customer March Offer'.
• Another method is to create a Promotion Code (if your booking engine supports it)  that the customer uses to obtain the fixed price when they book online.