What is our forum all about?

Good question, so starting at the beginning lets look at IHG. Intercontinental Hotels Group which is the largest hotel in the world encompassing a number of brands from Intercontinental Hotels, the upscale end to the business end to Holiday Inn Express and for long term stays at Staybridge Suites.

IHG needs to engage with their customers, I do prefer guests, and to enable them to do this both quickly and efficiently IHG with the help of specialist consultants (Communispace) run a number of forums such as our forum

Priority Club Connect

http://community.priorityclub.com/index.jspa#

Other forums such as the one I was previously with were private and it was a specialised Ambassador forum designed to help formulate the new Ambassador programme launched earlier this year.

IHG runs this forum to enable general feedback to managers and executives and for me to reinforce this let me relate a day I had with IHG.

As previously reported I have been a member of Priority Club for some 15/16 years and Joined Ambassador in 2000. I was staying in an Intercontinental waiting by the front desk and I noticed the Ambassador literature and joined there and then basically $150 for a free night seemed too good to miss. I was immediately upgraded and the staff moved my luggage etc to my new room with all the ambassador extras in it. Two years ago I qualified for Royal status that I so far have maintained. During this time I was one of the first to be involved with the private ambassador forum, the primary objective of this was to contribute to the re- launch of the Ambassador and Royal Ambassador programme. There was considerable discussion and we believed that our input was listened to and that we see our ideas implemented

I was invited to help host the a IHG social Marketing Expo at the brand new IHG headquarters in a country park about 20 miles West of London. Here I served as the voice of our forum sharing stories and experiences about both the private and public online communities. We were able to show why IHG should listen to their most loyal and frequent guests who stay  at their hotels. In this I believe we were successful. There is one thread in discussion asking do they listen. Oh yes they do and receive regular reports as well as following what is relevant to their department.

The Building is indeed very impressive as was the professional welcome by the reception staff. The Expo was in an exhibition centre in the building there were four major segments.

The Delegates were IHG employees, all head office staff were invited, who were introduced to the various forums and what they would do for them. The thread we have regarding where we would like to see new IHG hotels was of interest to the new development team, and for example the rewards team were interested in our discussion on qualifying rates as well as our efforts to share points earning opportunities, getting upgrades and generally sharing good things.

The Visiting General managers from some of the London IHG s were interested in the reviews and comments on visits by guests.

A number of vary high level executives spent quite a bit of time in the Expo, and demonstrations of  our threads etc was illuminating to them.

What do IHG get out of these forums?  Well research suggests that:-

Members are more loyal, as they can have their say.

Members probably are more aware of the hotel opportunities and brands

Members who are probably more likely to accumulate more loyalty points and hence their desire to use these in conjunction with paid stays increase.

I was able to sample the IHG restaurant which had an excellent choice and great presentation. Interestingly the chefs try out potential menus for the various hotel brands here.

Within the exhibition centre are dummy hotel rooms and suites and I was shown what may be the new style Holiday Inn rooms.

In all it was a very interesting and instructive day.