Hoteliers know that every guest wants to feel special when they travel. Yet creating a quality loyalty club as an independent hotel or small to mid-size hotel chain, is easier said than done. Many struggle to offer a variety of destinations or do not have a large portfolio on offer to make a loyalty scheme meaningful and advantageous to the guest. The launch of Wanup reinvents the way that hotels connect with guests by creating a loyalty club that brings together independent hotels and established chains worldwide. Wanup will be accepting members from November onwards enabling guests to find their ideal hotel in a wide range of destinations, book it at the best price, while enjoying benefits known was Wanup Winnings. The winnings come in form of travel cash, which can be redeemed immediately on future bookings, or as in-destination perks such as early check-in.
Wanup is the brainchild of the Vallet family, hospitality professionals and entrepreneurs from Barcelona, Spain. The family identified this critical demand for a new concept of loyalty club after experiencing it with their own established group of hotels, and after much brainstorming, they developed Wanup. Wanup is the second innovation from the Vallet family who created Quantam – a purchasing company that serves more than one thousand hotels internationally – in 2013. Quantam uses a sharing economy to get prices competitive for small hotels so they can compete with the value that larger hotels chains are able to offer. Similar to Quantum, Wanup also uses a sharing economy to band together smaller independent properties and small hotel chains to create one network, which is both expansive and enables hotels to offer more to their guest.
To start Wanup Guillermo brought in an expert team from the likes of TripAdvisor and and Restalo to make his vision a reality. Launching with a collection of hotels which include a mix of urban boutiques and business hotels, seaside resorts and rural retreats, Wanup is creating the most diverse and innovative international hotel loyalty club in the market. This diversity will reward those business and leisure travellers whose hotel needs vary from trip to trip, while also generating increased value and visibility for their partner hotels.
Wanup Partner Hotels
Partner Hotels, Wanup allows individual hotels to access the sharing economy to collectively offer greater visibility and value to their property. Joining is free and hotels will not only be added to Wanup.com, but they will also receive their own microsite, if they so wish, a Wanup widget for their own site and free CRM software. Wanup will take an average of 6-9% commission on any booking. In addition to a lower commission than most OTA’s offer, Wanup will be able to break the parity rate with members putting their Wanup Winnings towards their booking. Partner Hotels include a beach resort in Mallorca, a city hotel in London, an agriturismo in Puglia and boutique hotel in Oxford.
Wanup Members
Signing up to become a Wanup member will be available from November. The club is totally free and once registered, guests can choose and book from an array of carefully selected Partner Hotels on Wanup.com or through the Wanup app and directly with a Wanup Partner Hotel.
When booking Wanup Winnings allow members to earn up to 6% cash back on their bookings, while enjoying personalized perks and privileges at the partner hotels such as free breakfast, spa credits, and room upgrades based on the guests’ membership level. The 6% travel cash can be redeemed straightaway on future hotel stays, or saved up in exchange for larger rewards such as free nights at Wanup Partner Hotels. Members can also earn a reduced amount of Wanup Winnings when they book a partner hotel via a 3rd party such as an online booking website, or through a travel agent.
Both Circle, Star and Top members are rewarded with additional benefits tailored by the hotel e.g a rooftop cocktail or massage in the spa.
Mission
Wanup aims to be the world’s largest independent hotel loyalty club with a global collection of 7,000 hotels in the next two years. Wanup seeks to benefit a community of members who like to travel to diverse locations and varied types of accommodation, for both business and leisure, while giving greater visibility to its Partner Hotels.
Wanup will begin member acquisition once it has a portfolio of 400 hotels, which it expects to reach by WTM in November. Hoteliers wanting to become a Partner Hotel or wanting to find out more about the benefits of becoming part of Wanup can please visit www.wanup.com/en/about-wanup. Wanup will be exhibiting at World Travel Market, London (7-9 November) and will be found GV725 in the Global Village.