Adgully Exclusive | Hotels.com's one more step towards being different!

In today's cluttered environment it is really important to different. Now a days , many brands work upon creating exciting loyalty programmes for their consumers in an attempt to retain a loyal consumer base. Thus these loyalty programmes have helped brands to stand out in a cluttered market.

Hotels.com, the global hotel booking specialist launched one of the simplest loyalty programme in the hospitality industry called "Welcome Rewards'. According to the programme, you can avail a free night stay for every ten nights booked through hotels.com. The free night stay would be in the average cost of the 10 nights booked. It is one of the simplest programme since it does not involve any tedious calculations, sms number, coupon codes etc. it's a fairly simple, just book ten nights and get 11th nite free.

While chatting exclusively with Adgully, Rajiv Malhotra, Head of Marketing, SEA and India for Hotels.com shared some key insights about their initiative.

Briefly explaining about the Hotels.com's "Welcome Rewards' programme, he said, "Welcome Rewards is one of the simplest and yet one of the most user friendly loyalty programme offering customers one free night for every ten nights stayed. Its unique as it allows customers to accumulate their ten nights across chain hotels, B&Bs, self catering and independents, is the first of its kind in India."

When asked how Welcome Rewards is different from other programmes in the OTA sector, Malhotra explained, "Unlike most reward programmes, which are usually specific to one brand, Hotels.com allows customers to accumulate their ten nights across independent and chain hotels and to redeem their free night at more than 65,000 eligible hotels around the world. The eligible hotels are clearly marked on the website."

And the best part is that With Welcome Rewards, there are no blackout dates or complicated point systems - customers just stay ten nights and then take their eleventh night for free.

Also Last November, they included Debit cards and Net Banking transfers to their bouquet of available payment options in India and have received very positive feedback on the same which has also translated in higher sales volumes for them.

Further explaining the initiative, Malhotra told us that they also added hundreds of domestic hotels in India in the last few months and will continue to do so very aggressively in 2012 to ensure that they provide the widest range of options to the consumers.

Hotels.com gave a unique and useful offering to the consumers. They are now averaging at least two 72 hours sales a month wherein they offer 30-50% discounts on hotels in very popular tourist and business destinations such as Goa, Dubai and Delhi.

Last year, they also launched free apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, which allow users to search and book more than 20,000 last minute deals from over 140,000 hotels around the world. Available in more than 30 languages, the apps also allow users to sort and filter hotels, browse more than 3 million user reviews plus find last minute hotel deals close to their location.

"In addition to all this we are constantly working to make the user experience on our site better and richer. We are adding more images and information about each hotel to ensure our consumers can make an informed choice," Malhotra added.

Conclusively, Malhotra shared some of the key initiatives in the pipeline and plans for 2012. He says, "This year we will continue to build on the success we have achieved last year. Our focus will continue to be expanding hotel inventory and offering best prices for our consumers. We also plan to enrich the content on the website and improve the hotel search and booking process. We will also continue to expand our mobility portfolio to enable our customers to book anytime, anywhere easily." | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]