GHA
Reimagining hospitality 365 days a year
Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) is the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands, bringing together more than 35 brands with over 550 hotels in 78 countries. One the brand’s strongest assets is the award-winning loyalty programme, DISCOVERY, that which was founded in 2010. From its inception, it DISCOVERY set out to challenge traditional hotel loyalty programmes. Instead of offering points, like most loyalty schemes, this program was the first to capitalize on the nascent trend of experiential travel, rewarding its members with unique local experiences.
One decade later, the way we work and travel has changed. Loyalty programmes, such as DISCOVERY, need to reinvent how they recognise and reward travellers in order to remain innovative and ensure future success in an already experience-driven industry.
To reimagine the hospitality category again, GHA engaged C Space and Interbrand. The objective was to define the next iteration of the programme and co-create a truly relational loyalty brand by putting Human Truths at the heart of the process.
Co-creating with travellers from the USA, China & Spain and the UK, we landed on a bold new insight: for travellers, hospitality loyalty programs offer zero benefit most of the year – when they’re at home. Consumers are also tired of miles and points, and are confused about how to use their rewards.
These insights drove the definition of a new value proposition for GHA DISCOVERY that lives up to its origins: to break rules. Now, in a competitive scenario where experiences are the norm, GHA DISCOVERY provides members with a simple, generous and rewarding program that reinvents travelling by:
- Engaging with members 365 days a year, whether they are home or away.
- Building on a new experiential currency, DISCOVERY Dollars (D$), as the new rewards mechanism – clearer, fairer, more transparent.
Now GHA DISCOVERY is transforming, with the ambition to become the most engaging global community of travel enthusiasts transforming everyday choices into unique experiences anytime, anyplace. An ambition that the brand now communicates with the concept “Life rewards DISCOVERY”.
Visually, since GHA DISCOVERY offers unique experiences anytime, anyplace, it means members can enjoy them ‘from dawn till dusk’, which became the creative trajectory of the brand and was translated into visuals with the use of backgrounds that relate with the passage of time on the sky during the day.
