Starwood Launches B2B Loyalty Program

Hotel chain Starwoord is pushing its loyalty program, Starwood Preferred Guest, into the brave new world of B2B loyalty with its expansion to SPBPro.  The new loyalty program is pitched as a comprehensive rewards experience for meeting and business professional.

Starwood President and CEO Frits van Paasschen  noted of the launch that SPG Pro is intended to capitalize on a customer base that is business oriented (more than 50 percent of the company’s occupancy is drive by business travellers) while also driving consumer business to Starwood properties.

“The work that we’ve done to make SPG the richest elite program 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.”

Apart from driving occupancy, business guests also represent 70 percent of Starwoods total revenue broken up between corporate travel, meetings, leisure, wholesale  and events.

“SPG Pro is a compelling way for Starwood to reward our global customers, provide more personalized service on property and really understand the totality of the business our partners influence,” said Christie Hicks, Senior Vice President, Starwood Sales Organization “SPG Pro will also help us extend our reach beyond our managed accounts to attract new businesses, regional organizations 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 $80MM in revenue.”