VIDEO: Travel subscriptions and the price of loyalty

Subscriptions are in the spotlight as travel companies explore new options or reinvent themselves for travelers and business partners.

But how sustainable is the subscription model and do travelers really want to pay?

Companies such as Tripadvisor are putting a lot of faith in the model, having now fully launched the Tripadvisor Plus service in recent week and beta testing over the course of early 2021.

Online travel agency eDreams has also worked hard to develop its Prime membership program and says it is on target to hit two million subscribers by September 2022. 

Whether the drive toward subscriptions is due to the pandemic and sbsequent changes in buying patterns is still a relative unknown but there is clearly a fair amont of enthusiasm in some quarters of the industry that subscriptions is a concept that travelers will buy into - literally.

The development of such programs is obviously tied to fostering loyalty between consumers and brands in a new way, yet it is obviously not the only approach that companies can take as they seek to attract new customers back to traveling and secure the busines of existing guests and passengers.

Kanika Soni, chief commercial officer at Tripadvisor, and Lennert De Jong, chief commercial officer at CitizenM Hotels, spoke with Phocuswright's Lorraine Sileo during Phocuswright Europe 2021 about their respective approaches to subscriptions and the challenges and opportunities for the wider industry.

The full interview is included below...