Return visits from loyal customers are the life blood of every profitable casino. However, with many gaming options to choose from – destination casinos, regional casinos, local card shops, online gaming, state lotteries – how do properties build loyalty? And what offerings prompt the most return visits?
To gain insight into these critical questions, we focused on casino loyalty club data available through the Market Metrix Hospitality Index (MMHI), Market Metrix’ proprietary travel panel database. Below you’ll find what we learned about loyalty programs, loyalty drivers and the most important loyalty club components.
Loyalty clubs seem to work. Globally speaking, net return scores (the percentage of guests who say they are very likely to return less the percentage who say they are very unlikely to return) improve with each step up the loyalty club ladder, from non-member, to member, to elite member. In fact, loyalty club members are 58 to 76% more likely to return to a casino than non-members.
In the Americas, loyalty club membership has a particularly potent effect. Net return scores follow a very clear upward progression from 37.8% for non-members to 51.9% for members, and 66.4% for elite members. The high scores in the Americas may be due to investment in a broad guest experience (hospitality and gaming) combined with the maturity and sophistication of loyalty club programs.
In Europe, the impact of loyalty clubs is still significant. Members are 32 to 49% more likely to return than non-members. However, the net return scores are lower than the Americas and elite members actually score lower than regular members (34.4% for members compared to 30.5% for elite members). These results may indicate that adjustments to club promotions and benefits and clear differentiation for elite member benefits may be necessary to improve business impact.
In the rapidly expanding Asia Pacific market, loyalty clubs have the biggest upside potential. Currently, APAC has the lowest net return scores for non-members. But loyalty club membership does appear to lead to a significant improvement in returns. Net return scores are three to four times higher for program members, though the impact of loyalty programs is much lower than in other regions of the world. Conversations with our customers in Asia indicate that APAC casinos (particularly properties in Macau) are still enjoying the benefits of providing relatively novel gaming experiences to Asian guests. However, as the pace of casino development in Asia grows, so will competition for market share. Properties will benefit greatly by securing loyal, profitable guest relationships through clearly differentiated loyalty programs.
Download the full report to learn which parts of the casino experience have the biggest impact on loyalty, and how loyalty drivers change as guests climb the loyalty club ladder.
