Go beyond discounting
Rethink your next travel marketing campaign
The evolution of discounting in the UK travel industry reflects broader changes in technology, consumer behaviour, and competitive dynamics. While discounting can drive short-term bookings, it also erodes brand value. Leading providers are doing things differently. By utilising customer rewards, like gift cards, you can stand out in the crowd.
Discounts diminish profit margins
The cost of acquiring customers is rising significantly faster than the value those customers deliver. Recent industry research from Publicis Sapient, Adobe and Incisiv (Customer Acquisition and Retention in an Imperfect World) shows that between 2022 and 2025, customer acquisition costs increased by approximately 35%, while customer lifetime value grew by just 4.5% over a similar period.
35%
increase in customer acquisition costs between 2022 and 2025
4.5%
increase in customer lifetime value over a similar period
Acquisiton funnels are fragmented
Price comparison websites have made customer conversion increasingly more complex. Expedia Group research shows that travellers engage with multiple platforms throughout their booking journey, including OTAs, search engines and airline websites. On average, they spend over 300 minutes researching their trip, culminating in 25 page views on the day of purchase.
Use value-led strategy
Customers want more for their money but it's not easy to stimulate demand without hurting your profit margins.
Value-led strategies that improve conversion, protect pricing, and align marketing with long-term commercial outcomes.
Stop discount messaging
Many travel marketing campaigns rely heavily on discounting to drive conversion. Unfortunately this provides diminishing returns and erodes brand value.
Sales and deals are now so overused that customers expect them and will delay purchasing as a result.
Offer customer rewards
Giftcloud offers a simple switch - "getting more than I paid for" vs "getting something for less".
This exchange transforms your conversion funnel from a price race to the bottom to an impactful experience, creating touchpoints that reward and validate customers' choice.
Who are Giftcloud?
Our custom digital reward programs are designed to help attract more customers and boost growth by successfully incentivising both customer acquisition and retention. As pioneers in digital gift cards, we’ve built reward programs with a proven track record of delivering results. We provide a comprehensive range of services and technology to help our clients maximise their customer acquisition, retention, and referrals.
We Focus On Results
Our whole ethos is focused on delivering demonstrable results through custom digital reward solutions. Each year we deliver over 750,000 digital gift cards to consumers - that’s over ¾ million sales we help convert each year for our clients. However, due to the invaluable competitive advantage we provide for them, we are unable to publicly disclose results on a case study basis, but some highlights include:
- On average, our clients see a 188% increase in sales performance when using gift card incentives, compared to non-incentivised campaigns.
- An A/B test at the point of online conversion demonstrated that our giftcard programme delivered a 41% uplift in the conversion rate compared to an equivalent value discount.
- A rewards based retention programme we designed to engage customers throughout their journey led to a 140% year-over-year increase in customer retention.
- A re-activation campaign to 6,000 dormant customers delivered a 3% conversion rate to re-book a second holiday, delivering over180 additional booking
We offer targeted rewards
Live like a local
Use your next trip to connect to iconic spaces, places, and experiences.
Discover the beauty in your own backyard
You don't have to go far to explore the beauty and history of this world.
Fly by the seat of your pants
The best adventures are the ones that surpise you.
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