If you had to pick one of the biggest challenges facing CMOs today, how high on your list would customer loyalty be?
Agility requires a deep understanding of your customer and the ability to adapt to their ever-changing needs and expectations. It also requires a willingness to experiment and learn from failures, quickly iterating on strategies and tactics.
Today, we’re going to talk about the evolving landscape of travel loyalty programs and how brands can best engage with different generations of travelers, particularly in the face of changing economic conditions and emerging generational trends.
To help me discuss this topic and other highlights from arrivia’s Loyalty and the Changing Traveler report, I’d like to welcome, Jeff Zotara, Chief Marketing Officer at arrivia.
About Jeff Zotara
Jeff Zotara is the Chief Marketing Officer of arrivia, a travel technology company providing travel loyalty, booking, and marketing solutions to consumer-facing companies that want to deliver exceptional value to customers, uncover new revenue streams, and drive growth through exciting travel rewards and member benefits. With more than two decades as a strategic and operational marketing leader, Jeff is focused on driving growth and marketing technology across brands and providing the best member experience at the intersection of travel and tech.
Jeff Zotara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffzotara/
Resources
arrivia: https://www.arrivia.com
The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow
Get a copy of arrivia’s Loyalty and the Changing Traveler report: https://resources.arrivia.com/report-survey-loyalty-changing-traveler
Don’t Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland – the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150“
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:00)
If you had to pick one of the biggest challenges facing CMOs today, how high on your list would customer loyalty be? Agility requires a deep understanding of your customer and the ability to adapt to their ever-changing needs and expectations. It also requires a willingness to experiment and learn from failures, quickly iterating on strategies and tactics. Today, we’re going to talk about the evolving landscape of travel loyalty programs and how brands can best engage with different generations of travelers, particularly in the face of changing economic conditions and emerging generational trends. To help me discuss this topic and other highlights from arrivia’s loyalty and the changing traveler report, I’d like to welcome back to the show, Jeff Zotara, Chief Marketing Officer at arrivia Jeff, welcome back to the show.
Jeff Zotara (00:47)
Thank you, Greg, and thanks for having me back and looking forward to a good conversation today.
Greg Kihlstrom (00:52)
Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to, you know, great. Glad to have you back. And before we dive in, for those that didn’t catch our last conversation, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role?
Jeff Zotara (01:04)
Yes, well, my name is Jeff Zotar. I am the chief marketing officer of a company called arrivia. And a lot of people may not have heard of the name arrivia, but I think they’re very well aware of the brands that we represent. We’re a global travel technology company. And what we do is we power the loyalty platforms or the travel platforms for the big brands like T-Mobile, American Express, USAA, Synchrony Bang, Hilton Grand Vacations.
Marriott Vacations, those types of organizations who have deep loyalty goals around travel specifically, but instead of creating their entirely new travel platform from scratch, they’ve worked with us some as long as the last 20 years to have us execute. So essentially what I tell my kids is we sell hotels, cars, flights, cruises, and the whole gamut of travel, different experiences on behalf of all of our client members. In totality, we have about 10 different offices throughout the world with about 2,500 employees and super proud of what the team’s been able to accomplish. And we’ve been celebrating, I think, our 28th anniversary just recently. wow.
Greg Kihlstrom (02:14)
Congrats, that’s awesome. Thank you. Nice. So yeah, let’s dive in here. And as I mentioned, we’re going to talk about several things, but ⁓ definitely pull some highlights from Arrevia’s recent loyalty and the changing traveler report. One of the things in the report talks about generational nuances and some fascinating differences in how various generations approach travel.
So beyond the, you know, maybe some of the obvious like digital fluency of younger travelers, what are some of the more subtle yet impactful distinctions that you’ve observed between, you know, Gen Z, millennials, Gen X and boomers regarding travel loyalty and spending habits?
Jeff Zotara (02:54)
Yeah, I’d say this is across the board, but definitely on the millennial Gen Z side is that loyalty is no longer just transactional. It’s really about creating more memorable experiences. It’s creating a deeper connection with the loyalty program. And what we’re seeing is the younger generation is also more interested in the experiential economy, essentially, right? I think if you go back 10 years ago, heck, even five years ago,
You usually just pick a destination you want to go to. And your inspiration was maybe from family members or friends. What we’re seeing in this survey and what we’ve seen in all of our data and research we’ve been doing over the years, and especially in last couple of years, and especially on the younger generation, is that usually the experiences are driving the initial interest. A lot of it’s coming from social, quite frankly. And they’re on whether it’s TikTok or Instagram or YouTube, and they’re watching these short videos of 15 to 30 second micro content streams, and they’re seeing different inspirational content. And what we’ve seen in the research and our survey is that the younger generation is definitely transitioning to trying to find where they can experience those experiences. And then the destination almost becomes secondary. And then we also see a lot more advancements in what they call adventure tourism, where you’re going more internationally and you’re exploring some of these unique experiences that are beneficial for mental health and physical health and also immersing ourselves more into a deeper, more cultural immersion, kind of an experience so we can learn more about just from people who are different than ourselves. And so in totality,
⁓ we’re seeing that the younger generation specifically is really looking for a loyalty program that A, offers travel, B, offers these unique experiences across the platform, but also probably most importantly, delivers the value and the convenience and that overall frictionless experience that you and I and the rest of the audience are very familiar with on the e-commerce world where one click by and we have something in our mailbox a couple hours later, they’re looking for that similar type of experience. So overall, just more of a trend to those different areas is some of the most impactful initial findings that we’re seeing so far.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:27)
Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, behind the scenes, not that not that e-commerce is simple, but travel, you know, experience like all the logistics involved in travel and all those things. Certainly different than, you know, a simple like, you know, click to buy kind of transaction. And yet, to your point, you know, these generations and, you know, consumers in general are expecting that, you know, to say Amazon like experience with anything they do. Right.
Jeff Zotara (05:53)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. think if you look at travel, it’s one of the most complex transaction that one can make. I’m planning a trip now over to Europe and just the amount of planning that goes into it. it’s somewhat of a simplified trip and I’m pretty experienced at it. But when you take those who may be newer to travel, it’s not just a digital experience. There’s so much we talk about it, but there’s so much that happens offline.
80 % of our cruises in some cases are purchased offline because it really needs that handholding, the education around the destination. I did talk about the experiences, so what kind of additional experiences do you want to have? So we continue to see the evolution moving more to online, but as the user experience continues to evolve to your points, the e-commerce world is so much more simpler. So our goal quite frankly at Arrivia and throughout our travel marketing and engagement with our members and our customers is how do we truly make that experience more enjoyable, less work, and more collaboration? And I’d be remiss if I didn’t use the word artificial intelligence and machine learning, right? I think that’s required nowadays, but we are also seeing such an advent of that progress forward. And that is helping to connect on a deeper level quicker with the younger generation who’s more likely to use AI in their discovery process, social in their discovery process. And so it’s really mirroring their wants and their desires, even though they are a little bit more requiring more higher expectations, for lack of a better term. Their higher expectations are also met with a acceptance that they are willing to share more and to use AI in their discovery process to shorten that gap between discovery and booking.
Greg Kihlstrom (07:53)
Yeah, yeah. And so also in addition to the, you know, let’s say the traditional generations, know, the Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, the report also identifies Zillennials as a key micro generation. You know, what can you talk a little bit about that group? What makes them unique? And, you know, how how can brands kind of tailor their their programs to this this micro generation?
Jeff Zotara (08:19)
Yeah, this millennial micro generation we described it as is, I would say 22 to 32 or 23 to 33. It’s that 10 year age gap that is a little bit of a combination of Gen Z and a little combination of millennials. But these are the generation that is probably most influenced and most affected by social and most inspired by social.
And they also have a lot more desire to potentially travel more at the cost of maybe going out to eat as much or investing in a house or whatever. They’re really wanting to use their time now to explore more of the world, unlike any other previous generations. And I think it was always there with the younger generations backpacking through Europe during college or whatever it might be that many decades ago that the younger generation would do. But what we’re seeing now is in this millennial generation, that 22 to 32 age range, they are truly more willing, wanting to travel more. On all of the survey results, they are actually one of the fastest growing cruise demographics. They’re actually cruising a lot more than some of the baby boomers. A lot of folks think cruising is just for those that are
60 or 50 years of age or older and that’s just not the case. The average cruiser right now I think is right around 40 years old and that continues to come down more. And the reason why, it’s really about these experiences. They’re using the cruise ship as a destination in itself but they’re also visiting the private islands, they’re visiting all these different locations throughout the world, especially in Europe to experience different cultures every single night because a cruise goes.
to different places every single day. And so it goes along that kind of ADHD type of mentality that a lot of our world is so used to now, absorbing the world in these 15 to 20 second clips. They wanna do the same thing. They wanna catch a little culture here, catch a good show here in different parts of the world, and cruising helps them do that. we’re seeing this throughout travel. It’s not just cruising.
So that that zillennial generation is one that we’re targeting differently than say the Generation X or the Baby Boomers and the other general segments that we have.
Greg Kihlstrom (10:45)
So another thing from the report is to just talk about loyalty program optimization. There seems to be a significant gap between loyalty program membership and actual usage for booking travel. So what are some of the key barriers, maybe preventing travelers from leveraging things like loyalty points? And what strategies can brands employ to close this gap and drive some higher engagement?
Jeff Zotara (11:12)
Yeah, I say some of the key barriers include a lot of legacy systems, outdated user interfaces, they may have limited booking flexibility, and a lot of them lack a lot of personalization. So that I think, first and foremost, you’ve got to have travel as part of your loyalty program. I just think it’s a necessity. And if companies don’t, if it’s relevant to them, I think they are definitely going to fall behind the curve. And the reason why is because loyalty in general,
is becoming more of ⁓ a lifestyle benefit. Whether you look at American Express ⁓ giving you Uber credits or Uber Eats credits or whatever, it’s about how can I engage in my loyalty program often versus once a year when I book my cruise or once a year when I, a few times a year when I book my hotel. So you’re seeing this huge loyalty shift moving to have travel be a currency. And that travel currency is universal.
There’s probably no one we know that doesn’t want to and love to travel. And travel usually evokes such a positive emotion. You’re usually traveling for good, positive reasons. You’re traveling usually with companions, spouses, families, friends, and that is all great. And then if those companies with their loyalty program can provide discounted rates that are different than traditional OTAs or online public pricing,
then that truly becomes a value proposition that the consumer can get behind, stay loyal to, and then stay more engaged with the loyalty program. And therefore, that other loyalty components that they deploy on their loyalty program can be interacted with more often versus going back to maybe a few times a year where they would do it. So in summary, I think what I’m saying here is that we’ve got to adapt.
the loyalty programs and the travel programs with the shift in what consumers want, meaning more experiences, more lifestyle products, more day-to-day, how am I going to benefit if we truly expect them to become more engaged with that particular brand?
Greg Kihlstrom (13:25)
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that seems to me like also personalizing to the, you know, the the individual where possible. know, you had mentioned certainly A.I. both on the consumer end, you know, as far as how they’re searching for things and finding things, but also brand and on the loyalty program. And definitely there’s, you know, increased influence of of A.I. and just how personalization is being used in marketing broadly. But
How do you envision things like AI and AI-based personalization and things like that really shaping the future of travel loyalty over the next months and years?
Jeff Zotara (14:04)
Yeah, quite frankly, I think it’s going to be transformative. I think it’s going to completely change the speed at which consumers are able to find what they want. As a marketer, I think we’re living in a utopian world right now that I love to be in marketing and membership world and loyalty. And then you combine that with the world of travel and you combine that with AI.
It’s just amazing. ⁓ And the reason it’s amazing is because we get to meet the customer closer to where they want to be faster. So as we think about the use of AI and personalization and how we’re using it, it could be predictive analytics to determine that if I took trip A, trip B, that I’m going to be able to market a trip C, the next trip in someone’s potential lifetime itinerary.
quicker and maybe give some more inspiration to the user. And I just think the spray and pray mentality of sending millions upon millions of emails to consumers is outdated. I think it has to be more relevant. It has to be more super micro targeted. And quite honestly, while we use generational data as a guidepost with general marketing,
we’re really focused on that one-to-one marketing on a user because the similarities between a Gen Z and a Gen X and a millennial, there’s a lot of similarities. Our survey points out some of the key aggregate focal points of where some of those different things might be, but we are really more similar than we think generationally. So now, how do we use AI to pinpoint those similarities to deliver those deals?
at the right time, the right offer to the right person with the right price. All of that has been transformed. I anticipate and predict that just in the last years, as we all know, we’ve seen such dramatic change, but over the next two years, from a travel perspective, we’ll see significant change that will continue to help us help the consumer so they don’t have to spend X amount of minutes on a phone with an agent to book a cruise.
but they can do more of it online. They can do it more conversationally with an AI agent. And then if they need to dig a little deeper with an online offline agent, we can do that. So overall, I’m excited about it. My team’s excited about it. And our clients are super thrilled to see where it’s taken us so far.
Greg Kihlstrom (16:38)
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so part of getting to that, that that better customer experience and and everything involves, as you mentioned already, you know, there’s a lot of legacy systems, there’s a lot of technical debt, there’s all sorts of all sorts of things kind of that can be standing in the way.
What advice would you give to a brand that’s struggling to modernize its loyalty program? know, given all the things that you’re saying, you know, there’s lots of brands moving in that direction, moving quickly. This is a competitive landscape. You know, what would what would your advice be to them to, know, to start modernizing?
Jeff Zotara (17:15)
I
think one of the best ways to advance, especially in the loyalty space or the technology space is to help lean on partners, work collaboratively. It’s a selfish plug for, for arrivia, but aside, even if it’s not arrivia, if it’s someone else, don’t try to recreate the wheel, especially when it comes to deep segmentation and personalization on the marketing front or customer data platform or loyalty analytics.
It’s good to have your own experts within your own organization, but there are so many different startups and a lot of different companies who are doing incredible things across the spectrum of loyalty that ties in AI and machine learning, automation and segmentation. And I think being open to explore a lot of different third party partnerships and relationships can really help to elevate how connected you can become to the customer in a very
quick way versus trying to build a homegrown system that you’ve got to go through all the struggles that we all have gone through in our careers trying to do it ourselves. And so I think overall collaboration is probably my biggest advice around how do we modernize the loyalty program and focus and listen to the customer first and foremost. I’ve found that when we listen to our customer, they’re the ones who provide us the best insight.
to have us help make changes or institute different systems or processes to help make that overall user experience, online and offline, more enjoyable, less friction, and overall meeting the demand of the customer so they get what they want and they’re happy and they’re engaged overall. That’s the end goal for whether it’s a loyalty company or any brand.
Greg Kihlstrom (19:04)
Yeah. And in that spirit of partnership, can you talk a little bit about, know, maybe maybe even use an example or or something where, you know, how how does a company like a Riviera work with its partners to, you know, navigate, whether it’s generational shifts, it’s the customer experience stuff, you know, all with that goal of driving lifetime value. You know, how how does a company like yours work with those brands to really, you know, figure out what what makes the most sense?
Jeff Zotara (19:33)
Yeah, first and foremost, we’re the technology backbone to everything. So when you go to any of our different sites of our partners, you’re interacting with one of our 2,500 different employees. You’re interacting with our website, our technology. And so we’re powering that user experience. And that’s really important because that user experience is fueled by the data that we’re collecting. So a company like ours, we’ve been in this for 25 years in business, and we’ve got a ton of phenomenal data.
historical and predictive data that helps us to craft a better message or a more timely offer or anything that we feel that’s more relevant to the consumer. And that’s where I think the differentiation really stands out. If it’s a company like ourselves where we have not only the breadth and depth of data, we’ve got good quality of data because if you don’t have good quality, it’s garbage in garbage out with AI. So as we take that good quality data,
And then we take the automation, close to 60 % of all of our marketing campaigns that generate any kind of transactional revenue, it’s happening through automation without the use of a human being. So as you take those different factors and then you work with our partners, our partners ultimately control all the marketing and messaging and the branding and everything. So we’re simply the white label, private label solution for them, but we’re guiding them. We’re providing them with the insights of the consumers of what they’re doing on the site.
And then we’re tailoring the online experience to be very different than anything that they would have come to the site 20 days ago before they started their search. Meaning if I have my family with two daughters and we’re looking for Alaska cruise, my experience to the website should be very different than maybe a retired couple going to Europe and search for a seven day tour cruise or whatever it might be. Those experiences should be very different.
As we think about how Amazon tailors our unique shopping experiences, that’s what arrivia does, but on the travel side, through merchandising, through landing pages, through email, SMS, push notifications, all those different channels. And it’s really about ultimately meeting the consumer in their channel of choice. And that’s ultimately what our partners want and what we help them to do to deliver that right offer at the right time to the right person.
Greg Kihlstrom (21:56)
Yeah, I love it. Well, Jeff, always great to talk with you. Thanks again for sharing all your ideas and insights. One last question for you. I like to ask everybody, what do do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Jeff Zotara (22:11)
Well, I have two young daughters who keep me very agile. But professionally, I definitely think it’s staying close to not only the data, but staying close to the customer. So that could be through different surveys. It could be through different focus groups and talking with our clients on a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis to see what they’re seeing in the marketplace. And I think also it’s important to schedule some focus time.
to take a step back and think about what are we doing for next year and for two quarters, not what we’re doing two hours from now. And it’s really about how do you balance those two, the future of what tomorrow brings and what we need to accomplish and today of what happening is today. And as long as you look at the data, talk to the customers, schedule enough time for ourselves and our teams to focus on where we need to make those changes and stay agile.
That’s critical. We’re changing plans every day and we are very much with your brand, the Agile brand, we are very much in an Agile work environment in marketing and our membership platforms throughout the organization. So we do our best,
