Structural vs Emotional Loyalty in Travel

If less than about 40% of your revenue comes from customers you actually know – loyalty members, subscribers, or clearly tagged high‑value segments – then you have a discount budget not a loyalty strategy.

This is not about “making people happy”; it is about how structural loyalty (subscriptions, cards, bundles) and emotional loyalty (trust, reliability, fairness, identity) work together in airlines, OTAs, hotels and destinations, and how they show up in your P&L.

The 40% rule: when loyalty becomes a strategy

Across travel and retail, the same pattern appears. When roughly 40–60% of your revenue comes from customers inside a clear construct – a loyalty programme, subscription, pass, co‑branded card or defined cohort – the economics start to change. Acquisition costs are recovered faster. You rely less on constant promotions. Revenue is more predictable and less tied to ad platforms and short campaign spikes.

Below that range, you are still renting most of your demand, month after month. A very simple test for any travel leader is: “What share of our revenue comes from customers we can identify and describe, and is that share going up or down?"

On the paper she is "GOLD", but she's thinking " If my flight is delayed again, I am not flying with this airline ever again..."

Structural loyalty in travel: the “cage”

Structural loyalty is when customers stay mainly because the numbers and the setup make it easier to stay than to leave. It is rational and very useful but it is not love.

Think of eDreams Prime. The company used to rely heavily on metasearch for traffic. With the Prime subscription, it shifted to a member‑led model. Prime now has millions of subscribers, generates the majority of cash revenue margin, and has helped drive double‑digit profit growth, even while the company accepts lower short‑term EBITDA to grow the base. Members book more often and at better margins.

Travelstart+ in South Africa follows a similar logic. Travellers pay for access to better fares, credits and priority support. Wizz Air’s “All You Can Fly” pass offers a year of “unlimited” travel, but under strict conditions: tight booking windows, limited seats, and a fee for each flight. It is perfect for a narrow segment and almost irrelevant for others.

The honest way to describe this is simple: structural loyalty is a cage. It keeps customers in through contracts, sunk cost and friction. It is powerful and the Finance Unit loves it. But it does not guarantee people are happy. If the value drops or the rules feel unfair, they will leave as soon as they see a way out.

Emotional loyalty: the safety net

Emotional loyalty is different. It is what keeps customers with you when the cage door is open: when prices go up, a competitor undercuts you, or the journey goes wrong. In travel, emotional loyalty comes mainly from how you handle disruption, how reliable you are, how fair your rules feel, and how much “insider” value people get.

Disruption: where real loyalty is created

Disruption is where travel loyalty is truly tested. Delays, cancellations and missed connections cause stress and anger. A clear explanation, proactive rebooking, fair choices and a caring tone can turn a disaster into a “they really looked after me” story.

If your “loyal” customers feel abandoned the moment something goes wrong, you do not have emotional loyalty.

A useful way to measure this is churn after disruption. Look at customers who had a bad event and see how many of them book with you again in the next months. That tells you much more about real loyalty than a generic satisfaction score.

He used to compare fares, now he compares refund times. Welcome to emotional loyalty...

Reliability: what AI and humans both care about

As AI travel assistants become more common, reliability becomes even more important. These systems will look at hard data: on‑time performance, cancellation rates, refund speed and complaint patterns. If one airline is on time 90% of the time and another is late and slow to refund, the assistant will choose the first one, no matter how nice the branding is.

Emotional loyalty starts with doing what you promised, most of the time. You cannot compensate for constant operational failures with points and fancy emails.

Fairness: transparency and stable rules

Fairness can sound vague, but in travel it comes down to two things: transparency and stability.

Transparency means no hidden fees and no surprise conditions. Prices and ancillaries are clear before payment. Stability means you do not change loyalty conditions: earn and burn rates, fare rules or subscription benefits every few months without a good reason and clear communication.

Some simple indicators can help: how many complaints mention “hidden” or “unfair”, and how often you change key loyalty or pricing rules. Emotional loyalty grows when customers feel they understand the game and the rules do not move under their feet.

Identity: insider access, not just “brand vibes”

Identity in travel is about insider access, not just liking the logo. People start to say “I am a Airline X person” when they feel they get something important that others do not.

For airlines, this might be a customer care that actually picks up and provides solutions, queues that truly move faster, or early access to popular flights and seats. For museums and destinations, it might be member‑only preview hours, private tours or events for residents.

Identity is built when loyalty status or membership gives real advantages that save time, reduce stress or unlock special experiences.

A simple matrix: where is your travel brand?

The goal is not to draw the perfect matrix. It is to ask honestly: where are YOU today, and what would it take to move one quadrant up?

AI travel assistants: who they choose and why

AI assistants will not care how emotional your brand narrative is. They will care about data. On‑time performance, cancellation rates, refund delays and complaint patterns will drive their decisions.

Structural loyalty still matters because it gives you accounts and connections the AI can use: subscriptions, stored payment methods, known preferences. Emotional loyalty matters because it decides which accounts travellers connect to the assistant and when they override the “cheapest” option with “book my usual airline” or “pick this hotel again".

What travel leaders should actually do

Structural Loyalty is about Finance and Emotional Loyalty is about Operations.

If you lead an airline, OTA, hotel group or DMO, three actions follow from this view.

• First, measure your 40% number. Find out what share of revenue comes from customers inside a concrete construct: programme, subscription, pass, card or clearly tagged cohort. Track how that share changes over time.

• Second, split your loyalty roadmap into two tracks. One for structural loyalty (subscriptions, cards, passes, bundles) with financial KPIs like revenue per cohort, renewal rate and risk. One for emotional loyalty (disruption handling, reliability, fairness, identity) with KPIs like churn after disruption, repeat rate after issues, and behaviour over time.

• Third, be precise with language. Do not call every points change or card offer “emotional loyalty.” Subscriptions buy you time and data. Service quality, fair policies and real insider benefits earn you trust and forgiveness.

When both are executed well, your brand stops fighting for every single booking as if it were the first. You build a base of customers who come back by choice, not just by discount, and whose value you can plan around. In a market shaped by AI agents, tight margins and constant disruption, that kind of loyalty is not a “nice to have” – it is one of the few real advantages a travel brand can still own.