Why Expedia’s One Key reward program is bad news for hospitality

Loyalty programs will help the OTAs increase repeat business and market share at the expense of the hotel direct channel

While the hospitality industry was struggling to survive during the pandemic, Expedia and Booking were hard at work to build their loyalty programs. Both Expedia’s One Key and Booking’s Genius loyalty programs boast cutting-edge loyalty tech platforms, 170 plus million loyalty members each, 360,000 participating hotels providing both programs with special membership rates.

Key takeaways

• The loyalty programs aim to increase repeat business and market share for Expedia and Booking while reducing their marketing expenses;
• These loyalty programs go beyond offering points or discounts; they serve as valuable databases of first-party membership data, and in an increasingly cookie-less and privacy protection future;
• Expedia and Booking are now able to actively use member preferences, lifetime value, past purchases, and browsing behavior to engage, convert, and retain loyalty members - while less than 8% of independent hotels have adopted CRM technology and have any kind of a reward or guest appreciation program in place.

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