This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.
Today’s travelers have no shortage of loyalty programs to choose from — 70% of GHA Discovery members say they’re active in at least three or more. However, being a member doesn’t always mean being engaged. According to a Boston Consulting Group report, people’s overall engagement drops as they join more loyalty programs.
GHA Discovery, a loyalty program from Global Hotel Alliance that includes 850 hotels, resorts, and palaces from 45 hotel brands in 100 countries, recently launched its 2025 report, “What Travelers Want Most from Loyalty Programs.” Based on 8,687 responses with 85% coverage across 13 key markets, the report closely examines the key factors that drive guest loyalty. The central question: what makes travelers stick around in a crowded loyalty landscape? GHA’s research suggests it’s no longer just about collecting points — it’s about meaningful, easy-to-use benefits, clear value, and a sense of being recognized.
Experience First: The Rising Value of Stay Benefits
Today’s travelers increasingly prioritize quality of experience over quantity and scale when choosing hotel loyalty programs. The decision is less about points and more about feeling recognized, rewarded, and valued. According to the report, members ranked the availability of benefits and perks as their top consideration when selecting a loyalty program. Room upgrades topped the list, with 47% of members ranking them as the most important benefit. Other popular perks include complimentary breakfast, late checkout, and early check-in.
It’s clear that travelers are steering away from discount-driven loyalty benefits in favor of more substantive perks that improve the quality of their stay with more personalized experiences.
“This is an advantage for independent hotel brands,” said Kristi Gole, executive vice president of strategy at Global Hotel Alliance. “They have less red tape and fewer daily operational constraints. Unlike the scripted and predictable approach often seen in larger chains, they can truly differentiate themselves by providing a more human and tailored guest experience.”
Simplicity and Clarity Are Key
Complexity can be a dealbreaker. According to the report, travelers want easy-to-understand programs they can use without needing to decode fine print or navigate complicated redemption rules. This gives GHA Discovery a competitive edge as members don’t need to do mental gymnastics to figure out what their rewards are worth or how to spend them. They can use the rewards currency, Discovery Dollars (D$), across all GHA hotels by simply applying them as a payment type at checkout.
“Discovery Dollars are like cash in our hotels: D$1 always equals US$1. You can use it at checkout at the hotel or when booking online, and convert it to local currency if preferred. Unlike points, there are no calculations or high thresholds. With as little as D$10, you can spend it toward your bill or save it for something later. That simplicity — in the transparent value and the ability to use like cash without having to save up — is what sets our rewards apart,” Gole said.
Recognition, Personalization, and the Human Touch
The report suggests that feeling seen and appreciated matters just as much as earning rewards. With the right use of behavioral data such as booking patterns, spending habits, and stay preferences, hotels can go beyond generic emails and scripted welcomes on property to create moments that feel genuinely personal. Whether it’s a room upgrade to elevate a special stay, a tailored in-room amenity, or an exclusive experience suggested that aligns with a member’s interests, there’s potential to deepen loyalty through thoughtful, well-timed interactions.
According to Gole, GHA continuously updates its loyalty program based on member behavior and feedback. “We focus on benefit delivery at the property level, especially room upgrades, which members value most. It completely changes the experience when a guest has booked a standard room and suddenly gets handed the keys to a suite — it’s a surprise and delight moment,” she said. “We also heard loud and clear that guests expect breakfast to be included. So, we rolled out complimentary breakfast last year for top-tier members who book directly. The response has been great — it’s saving guests money and increasing their satisfaction, and hotels are able to offer it without a major hit to their bottom line.”
Flexibility is another area where GHA has responded to member feedback. After hearing that members wanted more time to use their rewards, GHA doubled the D$ expiration period at the entry level. The company is now exploring how to offer additional extensions for elite tiers.
Building Loyalty From the Back End Up
Delivering a unified loyalty experience today requires strong, often invisible, back-end technology. This has become a key focus area for GHA Discovery. “People want a seamless experience, and digital innovation is the key to delivering that,” Gole said.
GHA has doubled its technology investment over the last two years and built a sophisticated integration platform to connect a diverse portfolio of independent brands to the central loyalty systems. That infrastructure allows GHA Discovery to deliver consistent benefits and real-time member recognition across hotels, even when the underlying systems vary widely.
That aspect is a major challenge for independent hotel brands to manage on their own. Many of them use a patchwork of property management systems (PMS), point-of-sale platforms (POS), booking engines, central reservation systems, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and loyalty engines, often from different vendors, on different versions, with different upgrade cycles. Getting those systems to talk to each other in real time is one of the biggest hurdles in loyalty operations.
GHA’s approach is technical and practical. “We’ve figured out how to connect these systems. Sometimes it’s seamless, and sometimes it takes more effort, but we know what’s possible and how much lift it’ll require. We’re honest with hotel partners and set realistic expectations because technology integration is critical,” Gole said.
That transparency and technical flexibility are part of why GHA Discovery can compete with much larger programs. While bigger chains rely on standardized systems and uniform experiences, GHA supports small, luxury hotel brands that retain their independence. Brands such as Anantara in Thailand, Capella in Singapore, and Rotana in the Middle East each bring their own identity to the program. “We celebrate their individuality. They all make the program their own, and we embrace that,” Gole said.
Fewer Programs, Deeper Commitment
As travelers become more selective about where they spend their time and money, the future may look less like a sea of competing programs and more like a few dominant ecosystems. According to Gole, hotel loyalty will likely begin to resemble the airline alliance model. “Guests may end up choosing an ecosystem that best meets their needs, and over time, they’ll rarely look outside it,” she said.
That long-term commitment to one network, a concept familiar to frequent flyers, is already emerging in hospitality. GHA Discovery aims to lead the way, and its model appears to be working for members. According to the report, preference for GHA Discovery jumped seven points year-over-year to 53% overall and even higher among higher-tier members: 62% of Titanium-tier members prefer GHA Discovery, compared to just 13% for Marriott Bonvoy in the same group. These figures suggest that once travelers commit to GHA’s ecosystem, the experience keeps them there.
From the hotel brand perspective, GHA Discovery offers what Gole calls “the best of both worlds.” With access to a shared loyalty infrastructure, 30 million members, and $2.7 billion in room revenue generated from the loyalty program in 2024, member brands can benefit from the scale of a global program without losing their unique identity.
As more hotel groups consider how to stay competitive in a world of growing consolidation, GHA’s hybrid model provides a blueprint for what the future of loyalty might look like: connected, flexible, and built for long-term relationships.
This content was created collaboratively by Global Hotel Alliance and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.
