Rainbow Tours
Execution of a campaign aimed at increasing the number of pre-sale tour bookings, especially among returning customers, without resorting to standard price reductions.
70% Increase in Tour Bookings Through Loyalty Activities Without Price Reduction
Rainbow Tours is one of the largest tour operators in Central and Eastern Europe. Rainbow owns more than 100 travel agencies across Poland and r.pl website. Annually organizes carefree vacations and trips for more than 500,000 tourists.
Revenue in the Tour Operators industry in Europe is anticipated to contract at a compound annual rate of 6.2% to €78.3 billion over the five years through 2024. The decline in revenue over the period is predominantly due to the damage the COVID-19 outbreak inflicted on the travel sector over the two years through 2022. Travel in Europe has reached 91% of its pre-pandemic level, according to the European Travel Commission, and that has primarily been driven by Europeans travelling within Europe and plenty of international visitors - particularly from the US. Market size is projected to grow over the next five years.
Resources:
Tour Operators in Europe - Market Size, Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecasts (2024-2029)
The industry is characterized by two phenomena. Firstly – seasonality. Sales of trips in summer and winter. The season starts with pre-sales and ends with the so-called last minute. Secondly – low brand awareness of the operator with whom one travels and low loyalty. So, operators win the customer with price, as if they were new every time.
The challenge of the project was to find a safe way to move away from lowering the price when selling a new season. The primary goal was to encourage returning customers to make early bookings without relying on typical discount strategies. The company wanted to maintain the value of its offerings while also attracting customers who had previously traveled with them, differentiating the approach from first-time customers.
Audit of Current Loyalty Activities and Transactional History Analysis – Data Cleansing
In the first stage of the project we focused on data hygiene. We deduplicate and reorder the database to identify unique customers and determine the degree of recurrence and communication opportunities. Advanced analyses were carried out on the prepared data, which resulted in the identification of key segments and the construction of a scoring model. In the course of analysis, patterns were discovered regarding the return of customers in subsequent seasons and on this basis a promotional mechanism was developed, innovative on the tour operator market.
Building New Customer Segments and Developing Accurate Scoring Model
Prepared scoring model determined the probability of buying a tour in pre-sales. For Rainbow, it was a key stage due to the effectiveness of the campaign - thanks to the scoring, it was possible to focus the sales force on customers who had the highest potential. The other communication channels used the characteristics discovered in the segmentation.
Incentive Structure to offer a Real Value
Instead of offering typical price discounts, together with rainbow tours we introduced vouchers for future trips. The value of these vouchers was linked to the number of previous bookings made by the customer, providing an incentive to loyal customers without reducing the immediate profit margin.
Delivery of Loyalty Campaign
The campaign was communicated in a multi-channel manner with customers who made a reservation being removed from the base and not “attacked” with offers. For creation and communication, the characteristics of the segments were used, and the optimal elements of the offer were selected for them, e.g. families with children had family apartments accentuated. In the middle of the campaign, a verification of the adopted assumptions for the scoring model and an analysis of the effectiveness of communication was carried out - on the basis of conclusions from the behaviour of the control group, the number and types of orders, communication statistics, etc., the accents in communication were changed.
Advisors in branches were equipped with a good argument to talk to their old customers, who were effectively reached by the scoring model and base selection.
Expansion of Cooperation
The exemplary campaign and a 70% increase in customer returns have opened further avenues of cooperation between Loyalty Point and Rainbow. The next step in supporting sales is to create a loyalty program that will continuously identify customers and offer them rewards in exchange for loyalty.
“Loyalty Point has a solid knowledge to successfully overcome challenges ahead and has a decent technical infrastructure to fulfill high satisfaction of our Customers. On top of this are values like trust, engagement and kindness that make achieving ambitious goals achievable.”
Digital Director Lagardère Travel Retail
I highly recommend Loyalty Point as a strategic business partner. Whether analyzing industry dynamics or addressing complex challenges, their team consistently delivers practical and well-founded solutions.
Senior Marketing Manager
Vision Express
Loyalty Point has a solid knowledge to successfully overcome challenges ahead and has a decent technical infrastructure to fulfill high satisfaction of our Customers. On top of this are values like trust, engagement and kindness that make achieving ambitious goals achievable.
Digital Director
Lagardère Travel Retail
We are very pleased with the results of our cooperation. We especially appreciate the multitasking nature of the team - despite implementing several projects at the same time, complex promotional mechanisms were always ready on time.
Head of Loyalty & CRM
Decathlon
Loyalty Point consistently supports us in navigating various challenges, offering constant, professional and reliable support and tailored solutions that align perfectly with our business needs and capabilities.
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E-commerce, Marketing and Omnichannel Director
Rainbow
The vast majority of work with Rainbow focused on the strategic aspect of the campaign set-up and the analysis of its impact on the business and profitability of ongoing operations. The hypothesis that not only “low price” can sell a trip was confirmed. Satisfactory increases were achieved in individual key parameters:
- Volume growth of nearly 70% year-on-year
- An increase of 70% year-on-year in the number ofreturning customers
- Increase in booking value by 13% from customersrewarded with a voucher (net of voucher value) vs. customers without a voucher
- Highest conversions in the highest scoringcustomers, nearly 60% conversions in the top 20% of customers with the highestscore
- High share of bookings from segments thecustomer particularly cared about, i.e. premium and family with children,conversions of 20-25%
As part of direct communication, we prepared dedicated e-mails with creative and benefits tailored to segments of the base. These showed further elements of the offer for customers who had not yet bought the recommended product. Belove are few examples for polish market:
We also opted for Human-to-Human communication. Phone calls by advisors were made to customers for whom the preferred purchasing channel is a local travel agency.
“Loyalty Point has a solid knowledge to successfully overcome challenges ahead and has a decent technical infrastructure to fulfill high satisfaction of our Customers. On top of this are values like trust, engagement and kindness that make achieving ambitious goals achievable.”
Digital Director Lagardère Travel Retail
I highly recommend Loyalty Point as a strategic business partner. Whether analyzing industry dynamics or addressing complex challenges, their team consistently delivers practical and well-founded solutions.
Senior Marketing Manager
Vision Express
Loyalty Point has a solid knowledge to successfully overcome challenges ahead and has a decent technical infrastructure to fulfill high satisfaction of our Customers. On top of this are values like trust, engagement and kindness that make achieving ambitious goals achievable.
Digital Director
Lagardère Travel Retail
We are very pleased with the results of our cooperation. We especially appreciate the multitasking nature of the team - despite implementing several projects at the same time, complex promotional mechanisms were always ready on time.
Head of Loyalty & CRM
Decathlon
Loyalty Point consistently supports us in navigating various challenges, offering constant, professional and reliable support and tailored solutions that align perfectly with our business needs and capabilities.
E-commerce, Marketing and Omnichannel Director
Rainbow
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