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IHG Hotel Bookings From Own Channels Hit 80%
Hotel groups are continuing to invest in their technology and loyalty programs to drive direct business, with Holiday Inn-parent IHG sharing an update in its recent earnings report.
CEO Elie Maalouf said that alongside the investment in its guest reservation system (GRS), an initiative developed with Amadeus first announced in 2015, IHG has developed a revenue management system (RMS) and started work on a new property management system (PMS).
The GRS is enabling the upselling of room attributes in more than 6,000 hotels with the average value per upsell at $40 across its Luxury and Lifestyle portfolio and $20 for its Essentials and Suites properties.
“We continue to build on the success of room attribute upsell, as well as stay enhancements, to increase direct channel contribution, generate more revenue for our hotel owners and increase fee income for IHG,” Maalouf said.
The cloud-based revenue management system, which has been implemented in approximately 1,700 hotels, will change how hotels “manage booking channel and pricing decisions,” according to Maalouf.
Maalouf also shared some details on the relaunched IHG One Rewards loyalty program that was unveiled in 2022. He said a One Rewards member, compared with a typical online travel agency guest at an IHG hotel, spends 10% more on average, and the cost of the loyalty member’s booking to the hotel “including loyalty assessments and marketing program fees” is about 50% lower than an OTA guest.
He added loyalty members are “roughly 20% more profitable to a hotel owner” as a result and that knowing loyalty members and their behaviour also means it costs less to market to them.
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