Dinner on the pier

Abstract

Customer loyalty is a critical strategy for hotel businesses in order to ensure a certain level of occupancy and sustainable business in a highly competitive environment. Keeping this in mind, hotels find several ways to reward their loyal customers, such as offering a VIP treatment with special food and drink products in the room, special discounts, loyalty programmes with specific offers including discounts, upgrades or free services. However, more recently, memorability has gained importance in boosting customer loyalty. Therefore, hotel managers need to find new ways to acquire the loyalty of their customers through experiential offerings. This case aims to help students comprehend the role of experiential offerings to maintain customer loyalty and to develop skills to think and design experiential offerings in a hotel business. The case introduces a hotel which provides a successful and memorable event for their loyal customers. Participants are expected to recognise the experiential elements in class discussions and to develop an action plan through role play to organise such an event. As a result, participants are expected to understand how to use experiential offerings to create memorable experiences in order to engage loyal customers.