Originally Posted by
austin_modern
My point to the other poster was that they arent just meeting people to convince them to stay more... obviously they're looking for feedback.
As is your usual style, you opted for insulting me ('tin foil hat') rather than engage in a discussion on the topic.
The purpose of ALL loyalty programs is to extract additional dollars from loyal members. They are not to give loyal members more perks; that's just the bribe to extract additional dollars out of members. If I recall correctly, Hoplamazian even used the term 'irrational loyalty' in one of his interviews.
There are at least 3 different companies in the US using the name Incite, and all of them sell their services to major companies as marketing consultants to improve profitability.
A better question would be why Austin? Because the city matches the demographics that Hyatt is looking for. It's a tech oriented city with a fairly affluent younger population.
This is not a cheapie random marketing survey; a marketing company doesn't offer to go to individual houses and do one-on-one interviews and offer a reasonably large amount of cash to individuals in random surveys. If it were $10 and everyone meeting in a conference room, sure it'd be more random. This survey was not set up to be random.
Think of it this way ... companies place a dollar value on their customers. A previous loyal Hyatt Diamond who has only had a few stays in 2017 no longer carries a high value for the company. On the other hand, a customer who's already stayed 30 nights and has another 25 nights booked has significant value for the company - significant enough that the customer is being offered $150 for a couple of hours of their time.
Originally Posted by
austin_modern
We will have to see how REVPAR looks during the next earnings call.
I see you're now hedging your previous REVPAR statement. The first quarter conference call is likely still too early to see the impact of World of Hyatt unless they give forward guidance. The amenity only disappeared March 1 and many Globalists are just now hitting the point where they plan on booking away from Hyatt until near the end of the year in order to get later expiration dates on their TSUs (formerly DSUs).
A better question would be how Hyatt performed in comparison to other hotel chains. First quarter 2017 REVPAR was pretty strong for hotels worldwide, with only Central/South America reporting a REVPAR decline for the first quarter of 2017 (not a strong area for Hyatt). US REVPAR was up 3.4%. Statistics courtesy STR.