Starwood Preferred Guest, the award-winning loyalty programme from Starwood Hotels & Resorts, is breaking new ground in customer loyalty and personalisation with the debut of SPG Pro, an all-new, comprehensive loyalty programme for meeting and travel professionals.
Set to debut in October 2014, this new programme will offer meeting and travel professionals SPG elite status, upgrades and Starpoints for B2B business booked at any of Starwood’s nearly 1,200 properties around the world.
Also, going forward, any SPG member who books a group stay, event or corporate business meeting, regardless of if they are a travel professional or not, will earn Starpoints and status for the business they influence.
Starwood President and CEO, Frits van Paasschen, said that SPG Pro was designed to leverage the strength of SPG, which today drives more than 50% of the company’s occupancy and continues to shift consumer business to Starwood hotels.
“The work that we’ve done to make SPG the richest elite programme in the industry has proven that we can create true and lasting loyalty with our most profitable guests and shift share of wallet to our hotels,” said van Paasschen. “With SPG Pro, we’re focusing our powerful loyalty lens on B2B to cultivate ever stronger and more personal relationships with our global customers who deliver guests to our hotels.”
Today, B2B accounts for nearly 70% of Starwood’s overall room revenue and is comprised of corporate travel, meetings and events and leisure and wholesale travel. With a salesforce of more than 5,000 globally, Starwood’s Sales Offices manage 1,200 global accounts from more than 30 offices around the world. According to Christie Hicks, Senior Vice President, Starwood Sales Organisation, the top 1% of accounts drives 40% of Starwood’s B2B revenue.
“SPG Pro is a compelling way for Starwood to reward our global customers, provide more personalised service on property and really understand the totality of the business our partners influence,” said Hicks. “SPG Pro will also help us extend our reach beyond our managed accounts to attract new businesses, regional organisations and a next generation of travel professionals. New global travel patterns are driving more corporate, leisure and meetings business than ever before and with each 1% share shift in this business, we add $80m in revenue.”