Exclusive | Innovations in vacation ownership: Sterling's Lata Subramanian

Sterling Holidays, India’s leading Hospitality Company and pioneers of Vacation Ownership in India recently created an interactive 360 degree initiative – ‘Sterling Holiday Beats’ to engage travel lovers with the Sterling Holidays brand.  ‘Sterling Holiday Beats’ gave people an opportunity to list their favourite holiday song among the top 10 ‘Holiday Beats’ of India along with a chance to win exciting prizes. ‘Sterling Holiday Beats’ was launched on Facebook on April 22, 2012. The concept was rolled out in parallel on other platforms such as Sterling Holiday resorts, on-ground activation channels, radio channels and employee get-togethers.

 

Adgully caught up with Lata Subramanian, Vice President – Marketing, Sterling Holidays as she divulges interesting insights into the initiative.

 

Shedding light on the thought process that drove the “Sterling Holiday Beats Initiative”, she said, “Sterling Holidays has always studied consumer needs, wants and behavior closely. The insight that drove the initiative has been very simple. The minute someone starts thinking about a holiday, it brings a smile to their face and a song to their lips. This maybe because of some past memory of a holiday well spent which they cherish. They associate the song with that particular memory and thus the song becomes a holiday beat.”

 

Elaborating further, she explained, “Music is universal and it sings in the blood of Indians. Indian cinema has picked up on this very well. Indian lyricists have always waxed eloquent about the marvels of Mother Nature. There are also a variety of songs which inspire the desire to go on holidays and also songs which revoke past holiday memories. Thus, holidays and music go hand in hand. Using this insight, we saw the potential for a major brand property and this led to the creation of Sterling Holiday Beats.”

 

 Talking about how the initiative has formed a connect with the audiences, Lata said, “We have been in the leisure holiday business for a long time. With Holiday beats as a concept, we have a powerful connect between the brand and the consumer; given the fact that in India, the love for music is connected to nature. Music has a universal appeal and it is ingrained in the Indian psyche. When we launched the Holiday Beats Page on Facebook on April 22, 2012, we had a fan count of 26,000. In six weeks, we crossed 100 thousand, primarily due to the fact that Holiday Beats went viral.”

 

Speaking on the media mix employed for the initiative, she said, “It was launched on Facebook initially. After the popularity on Facebook, we ran a ten day burst on 93. 5 Red Fm in two markets namely; Mumbai and Delhi which was later integrated on Facebook. Also, two days before the campaign broke; we put up banners on our Facebook page.”

 

Lata believes that the most gratifying aspect of the initiative was when Holiday Beats was implemented in the Sterling resorts. At every Sterling Holiday resort, an evening full of entertainment was planned for members and thus Holiday Beats was incorporated in the evening entertainment programme of the resorts.

 

She exclaims, “The result was amazing and extremely satisfactory.  Members came forward, sang their favourite holiday beats and reminisced previous holiday memories with Sterling Holidays. We also shot videos of members singing their favorite holiday beats and uploaded them on Facebook. This served as the greatest customer testimonial that I could have wished for.”

 

Sterling Holidays also plans to create further engagements around ‘Sterling Holiday Beats’. Elaborating on the same, Lata said, “Love for music never dies. We plan to give the initiative a thematic appeal. As a part of this, we recently launched monsoon holiday beats on Twitter; wherein we asked people to tweet their favourite monsoon holiday beat. There are several other themes that we plan to explore. We have also published a CD in association with T-Series. The Cd’s are being given away as mementos to valued members at our resorts. On ground activations are also being conducted. Thus, a 360 degree campaign is on the cards.”

 

She added, “We are about making holidays affordable to Indian families and giving them memorable holiday experiences. The world has become fast paced. Everybody in the family is either studying hard or working hard. The actual family time that families get is when they are on holidays. Holidays become important from the point of view of strengthening family bonds and families spending quality time with each other. Sterling Holidays delivers holiday experiences at affordable rates that become part of a family’s cherished memories.”

 

Unraveling some unique facets about Sterling Holidays, she says, “Sterling Holidays was a pioneer of vacation ownership in India; which was then called time share; about twenty five years ago. World over, now the industry is called vacation ownership, because it is a far better descriptor of the product. Time share means sharing time, whereas vacation ownership is when you are paying at today’s prices for a holiday every year for the next 25 years. So, you own the vacation. In the vacation ownership business, there are basically two large national players in India; namely Club Mahindra and Sterling Holidays.”

 

Expressing her views on the emergence of travel as a competitive domain over the years, she exclaimed, “The beauty of this business is that it protects you against inflationary costs. As leisure tourism has taken off in the country, lifestyles have changed. People like to holiday frequently. Vacation ownership is a beautiful way to discover the world at a far lower cost than you would have to book hotels every time you go. You have a network of hotels within the country at your disposal and you have an exchange platform. So, you can exchange points to holiday anywhere in the world. The competition does not worry us. As a national brand of leisure resorts, Sterling has a huge advantage. We have a pan India presence. We also have sprawling resorts in some of India’s best holiday destinations.”