Award Date

5-1-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Carola Raab

Second Committee Member

James Busser

Third Committee Member

Alison Green

Fourth Committee Member

Robert Chatfield

Number of Pages

91

Abstract

Loyalty programs are a staple of the hospitality industry. As time progressed, there has been a shift among the structure of loyalty programs to not only reward the large spend of casino players, but also to compensate other frequent travelers of the hotel. As hotels continue to offer increasing benefits and compensation while reevaluating the tier structure of loyalty programs, research was necessary to discover if these loyalty programs are extracting the maximum revenue per guest and creating overall revenue for the hotel.

The purpose of the study was to uncover the relationship between revenue management and hotel loyalty programs. While some research has been conducted on the relationship between customer relationship management and revenue management (Shoemaker & Lewis, 1999; Wang, 2011), further research was necessary to bridge the gap between hotel loyalty programs and revenue management (Wilco, Shanshan & Eric, 2011). Little evidence existed on whether revenue management and hotel loyalty programs work cohesively, or even if they should.

A pilot study of a focus group was conducted to assess the general relationship between revenue management and hotel loyalty programs, followed by thirteen in-depth interviews. After the interviews were transcribed, content analysis was performed, followed by the use of Atlas.ti to further analyze the data. Participants’ were asked questions regarding the interaction of revenue management and hotel loyalty programs. Overall, the goal was to understand consumer behavior to drive repeat business; if a hotel can generate repeat business, then an emotional connection may develop between the hotel/brand and the guest. Revenue management used a loyalty program as a tool to track and gather data on the customer.

Keywords

Customer loyalty programs; Gambling industry; Hospitality industry; Hotel; Loyalty; Program; Revenue; Revenue management

Disciplines

Business | Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Gaming and Casino Operations Management | Hospitality Administration and Management

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download


Share

COinS