Local moteliers use innovation to maintain loyalty

New Plymouth is a well-known tourist hot spot for surfers, families and corporates alike. The trouble for the consumer is choosing where to stay. Mark and Denise Snowden of Bella Vista Motel have made it an easy choice for guests - stay with them and get a Bella Vista Rewards Card that gives you money back!

The Snowdens, as part of Bella Vista nationwide, adopted a personalised customer loyalty and retention programme to generate loyal business and to have an edge over competitors in the hospitality market.

The Bella Vista group employed Cash Rewards to develop personalised Bella Vista Rewards Cards. These offer visitors a percentage of their accommodation spend back and is loaded onto their card at the time of their stay, that they can then redeem just like cash towards future accommodation.

“Bella Vista rewards cards are given out effectively by all moteliers in the group nationwide. We find that for every card we give out, we get one new card that was issued by Bella Vista in another city,” said Mark.

“It is an excellent means of generating return business as well as a great marketing tool. People choose to stay with us because of the rewards they gain.” It’s often thought that loyalty programmes are confined to smaller ticket items such as coffee shops, clothing stores and supermarkets, however Bella Vista proves that it works for them too.

“We get a lot of corporate business in New Plymouth so the businessman often uses the card as his perk. Each time he has to travel for work, he gets the rewards and can then use the cash back to take their families on ‘free’ holidays from time to time”. Cash Rewards offers cost-effective, tailor-made solutions that encourage repeat business and improve retention rates by providing incentives for customers to make regular purchases.

Cash Rewards provides the IT infrastructure required to develop customised loyalty programmes, which minimise set-up costs for businesses. The loyalty cards can be swiped through existing eftpos terminals which means it is easy to install, easy to manage and saves individual businesses tens of thousands of dollars.

“We constructed a programme for Bella Vista Motel Group that encourages and motivates customers to stay at, and return to, Bella Vista motels during their travels,” said Peter Leaver, Director, Cash Rewards.

Cash Rewards is able to measure the customer repeat business for Bella Vista since the inception of the rewards programme, and has the technology to look back through years of data collection which can now predict the value and behaviour of each customer.

“77% of our cardholders spend between $1800 and $380 per year which makes it valuable for us. It attracts new business, locks it in, and helps you to market to your customers. The repeat business it generates is awesome,” says Mark.