Barcelo Hotels & Resorts has launched B Partner, its first loyalty program for North American travel agents. Officials for the Spain-based, all-inclusive chain describe this introductory year as "particularly lucrative" for retailers, as redemption levels for earning free nights have been slashed in half.
Under the program, registered agents earn "perks," or points, for confirmed bookings made and fulfilled after Nov. 1, 2008, at 28 Barcelo resorts in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Fifteen perks are awarded for each night booked at a Barcelo Premium hotel and 10 perks for each night at a standard Barcelo property. Agents can earn free nights for as little as 300 perks, or 20 booked room nights, at a Barcelo Premium hotel.
The program is "our way of saying thank you to our most valued partners while introducing the brand to new agents," said Claudio Zboznovits, vice president of sales and marketing in the U.S. and Canada.
B Partner members can register, redeem and track perks at the new BarceloPartnerClub.com Web portal, which also features information on Barcelo hotel openings and improvements as well as initiatives such as the chain's Club Premium high-end amenities and services program. The site also has a link to Barcelobrochures.com, where travel agents can view, bookmark and email electronic hotel brochures.
The program has been a long time in coming, according to John Schultz, Barcelo's Fairfax, Va.-based marketing and advertising manager for the U.S. and Canada.
"We've never had anything in North America, which, to be honest, didn't make sense because we've always been allied with the travel agent community," he said, noting that about 85% of business comes through traditional tour operators, "which essentially originates with the travel agents."
"This was the obvious final step that brings everything full circle for the agent community," Schultz added.
In this debut year, Barcelo is keeping B Partner simple. "There's no merchandising aspects," said Schultz. "You book Barcelo, you earn perks and you redeem them for travel at our hotels."
Registered agents must enter their Barcelo bookings manually at BarceloPartnerClub.com, which keeps a running tab of redeemed and pending perks.
"Unfortunately there's not even one [operator] partner out there that automatically enters the booking for them," said Schultz.
Barcelo might upgrade or fine-tune the program going forward but for now wanted to start rewarding, and listening to, its travel agent partners, he added.
"We just wanted to launch the program and have it out there so we could start to learn some of the booking behaviors of our agents and also identify their needs before we start creating more incentives."