Holiday park loyalty programmes: the key to strengthening guest retention and boosting revenue

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Holiday park guests are certainly a loyal bunch. Of the 76% planning to visit a holiday park at least once in the next 12 months, 72% of them intend to visit a brand or chain they have been to before. The question, then, is how can holiday park operators leverage this to their advantage?

The figures above come from our recent research, where we took an in-depth look at the holiday park sector. We surveyed thousands of holiday park guests and residents to find out what they want from their holiday park experiences and to identify the challenges and opportunities facing operators in the sector. And as part of this, we looked at the role of loyalty schemes.

How technology is transforming the holiday park sector

As in all other sectors of the hospitality industry, technology is helping holiday park operators deliver better customer experiences, drive sales and grow their businesses. Following a behavioral shift towards technology adoption – amplified by the pandemic – consumers now not only accept technology as part of the hospitality experience but agree that it improves their experience. In fact, our research showed that 64% of holiday park guests strongly agree, or agree, the availability of tech improves the quality of their stay.

However, such tech isn’t always available. Less than half of those surveyed said they’d had tech-based services available to them during their last visit to a holiday park and less than 20% of those had made use of those services. Moreover, even where it is on offer, it isn’t always hitting the mark. Over two-fifths of visitors gave low scores to tech services in holiday parks when asked as part of the survey. Nearly a quarter (23%) gave low scores when rating order at table systems in on-site restaurants, cafés and bars, and this rose to a quarter exactly (25%) giving a low score when rating the tech available to book activities.

Such figures strongly suggest that the sector is beginning to lag behind guests’ expectations. But all is not lost; investment in integrating systems and by ensuring you’re using all the capabilities of your existing systems, could be transformative. Even something as simple as utilising the customer data you already collect as part of the booking process will make a big difference, enabling you to remove particular pain points, personalise guest journeys and create more relevant experiences and offers. And the key to improving the guest experience in your park, could well be a loyalty scheme.

Leverage digital loyalty schemes for competitive advantage

Loyalty schemes have proved themselves popular with consumers and proven their worth to retailers and hospitality operators, alike. With the right technology in place operators can effectively collect data and use that information to target guests with specific promotions and bespoke offers, thus boosting spend and encouraging repeat visits.

The power of loyalty schemes has not been lost on holiday park residents, with 51% of them already signed up to a holiday park loyalty scheme. When it comes to holiday makers, however, the number falls to a mere 16%. It is particularly thought-provoking to contrast this with the similar number of residents and non-residents who expressed interest in signing up for a scheme – 49% and 46% respectively, so the desire is there.

To be successful, loyalty initiatives and programmes should offer:

  • Excusive discounts for food and drink (61% of residents said this would encourage them to use on-site facilities more)
  • Exclusive services and events (52% of residents said this would prompt them to take up offers) and
  • Personalised experiences (just 43% of guests thought the experience across the park was personalised enough)

In conclusion, there is an opportunity for operators to leverage holiday park guests’ loyalty to the brands they love. Coupling this with more seamless, integrated technology and digital loyalty initiatives could really help make significant improvements to guest satisfaction and, therefore, the bottom line.

See the whole picture, join the whole experience

Zonal’s connected suite of hospitality solutions can help holiday park operators to optimise the guest experience and maximise revenues, while minimising costs and admin. These solutions include EPoS, table reservation systems, mobile Order & Pay at table, click and collect and more.

Visit our dedicated sector page to discover more.

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