Q&A with La Quinta VP Marketing
La Quinta Inn & Suites is in the business of putting people up for a good night’s rest at any of its 800 mid-scale hotels. It has been building new hotels at a steady rate, more than 80 in 2008 and 2009, before slowing down to a projected 50 this year as the economy stalled. The firm is also in the business of making sure travelers—particularly frequent travelers—are aware of and actively participate in its loyalty program, La Quinta Returns.
La Quinta has undergone a total evolution in how customer loyalty is regarded, starting with the revenue growth generated by the Returns program, which put a new focus on driving guest loyalty at every level within the company from the COO down to to the front desk reps.
Mike Case, the vice president of marketing for the hotelier, spoke with Promo about building membership.
PROMO: As a mid-scale hotel chain, how do you attract members to La Quinta Rewards over the larger hotel programs?
CASE: We’ve put a lot of emphasis in the last two years in particular on the program, which now drives 45% more contribution to the brand revenue than it did even two years ago. We purposely do a couple of things in order to compete against the big brands. We set our program up with faster ways to accumulate points so we are more aggressive on bonus points. And each month we also set groups of 100 to 150 of our properties and communicate to our members that they can earn double or triple points for stays at those hotels. This is a nice way to get members to try the new properties. We’re trying to be more generous than our competitors.
PROMO: Have you been actively marketing the program?
CASE: Historically, La Quinta has not really pushed the program. We do a fair bit of mass marketing and the program has always just done OK. In the last couple of years there has been a lot more emphasis on enrolling members and supporting the program and it is doing outstanding. We have 6.5 million total members and 1.6 million active members.
PROMO: What are you doing to attract new members?
CASE: All of our mass campaigns that launch next year, TV, radio and others will include messaging to attract higher quality frequent travelers to the program and communicates that the program is competitive with the other programs.
PROMO: What has been your most responsive marketing channel in attracting new members?
CASE: We’re very active on the Internet, attracting new members and guests, but we are now only getting aggressive about putting that in mass-market vehicles. For the first time we ran a specific Returns spot this summer and we’ll air another this fall. But that was just getting our toe in the water.
PROMO: What do members grumble about?
CASE: Historically La Q has done a so-so job of taking care of our most valuable members, Elite Members. We are now much better with communication and customer service for these members. We’ve also really focused in on service attributes for this group such as upgrades and bottles of water and food snacks. If you go back a couple of years, Elite Members would have grumbled that they didn’t get the service on property that they deserved, but we are now going that extra mile to take care of them.
PROMO: What is the top redeemed award?
CASE: Free nights. We made that an attractive option for members. That is a superior value for our members versus our competitors.
Editor’s note: The original La Quinta rewards program launched in 1978. It was called The Caballero Club, or Cowboy Club as all of its properties at the time were located in Texas.
