
As I took a domestic India flight over a lazy afternoon last Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to see them make some sterling efforts on the retailing front on-board.

As I took a domestic India flight over a lazy afternoon last Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to see them make some sterling efforts on the retailing front on-board.

Marrying merchandising and customer loyalty – arguably the holy grail of the modern airline. But how can they do it effectively and where does it head next?

Airline merchandising and loyalty share a common objective to maximize profitability by delivering the desired branded traveller engagement and experience.

Merchandising is moving to a new phase – beyond relatively simple unbundling to enhanced ancillary services, personalisation via the social graph and more.

Suppliers such as airlines and hotels have rolled out significant merchandising strategies to boost their revenues from ancillary travel products.

A couple of years ago, Park City Mountain Resort’s merchandising efforts were relatively vanilla, with “a couple of pricing tiers and a handful of products.”

JetBlue redesigned JetBlue.com and its mobile website, and also introduced an iPhone app — emphasizing personalization in them all.

United and Continental airlines are now handing out miles and other perks to road warriors when they use Facebook and Foursquare to check-in through their social networks at various US airports.

Lots of ideas were floated at the annual Datalex User’s Conference in Dublin last week, as a roomful of consultants, airlines, distributors, and technology providers talked about airline merchandising perhaps coming-of-age.

Banish how it used to be carried out – travel inspiration and searching for products has changed immeasurably as consumers find new ways of finding the perfect trip.

Do you understand the true costs of travel payments, how to reduce your exposure to credit card fraud and surcharges or how virtual cards work?

Discussing recent hot topics such as the TripAdvisor-Jetsetter acquisition, hotel wifi, Wordpress and hotels, mobile design and user experience.

Ancillary services are here to stay, so how do travel companies and airlines develop their technology and relationships so that merchandising can work for everyone?
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