Omnichannel strategies: How to earn customer loyalty in travel

Loyalty schemes are standard in the travel sector, yet few deliver the returns brands really want.

Points or miles alone will not keep people coming back. Lasting relationships grow from a great customer experience – the ease of booking, the security of payment, the accuracy of updates and the quality of service. But designing a seamless experience from awareness, to booking, to delivery, is easier said than done.

Most travel companies depend on a patchwork of systems, operated by external partners struggling to share data or work together. This fragmented model leaves travellers with inconsistent information and forces employees to work around gaps, making it harder to deliver the seamless experience that customers expect.

Earning loyalty starts with meeting customers’ end-to-end expectations through a clear, joined-up omnichannel strategy. This should be built around real behaviours and supported by employees and partners who create consistency across every channel.

Why seamless travel is so hard to deliver

Behind every journey sits a complex network including booking, ticketing, payment, security, operations and support systems. Too often, these platforms aren’t fully connected, leaving inconsistencies and gaps that impact your customer experience. And with data trapped in siloes, there’s no single source of truth to understand each traveller or to make real-time decisions.

Much of the experience also sits outside your direct control. For many travel companies, the end-to-end experience involves multiple touchpoints with third-party platforms and partners, but customers don’t always see the distinction. If there’s a check-in problem or their luggage goes missing, they hold your brand responsible – and a single negative incident can outweigh the positives that came before.

To add to this challenge, your customers want personalised experiences, yet most will only interact with you a handful of times each year – sometimes less. You receive far fewer behavioural signals than high-frequency industries such as retail, making it harder to tailor offers or anticipate needs.

Even when digital engagement tools are available to help build a clearer picture, many people won’t download your app for a one-night hotel stay or a single journey.

So, what does it take to address these barriers?

If a proliferation of manual processes, confusing architecture and general lack of trust in data sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

The core components of an effective omnichannel strategy 

Lasting loyalty comes from a joined-up approach that links every system, partner, and touchpoint, while equipping the people who deliver your services to act as one cohesive brand.

The most effective omnichannel strategies share a set of core components:

1. Make a clear promise:

Customers are reassured when they know what to expect from a brand, and that expectation must hold true across every channel.

Where to begin? Spend time listening to your customers and frontline teams to understand their expectations and where they’re currently not being met. From there, you can create a brand promise to share internally and use as a touchstone for decisions and developments.

2. Prioritise customer-first design:

If a clear promise sets the direction, customer-first design ensures every interaction delivers on it. Achieving this means shaping journeys around real traveller behaviours rather than internal assumptions.

Where to begin? Combine customer feedback with booking analytics, call centre insights and other data sources to see where travellers hesitate or drop off. Choose one or two of those friction points to improve first – for example, simplifying a form or re-ordering steps in the booking flow.

3. Create unified recognition:

Feeling “known” makes travel easier and more personal, but creating a single customer record can be overwhelming when you’re managing multiple, fragmented systems.

Where to begin? Start small by linking core customer details, such as booking references and email addresses, between key systems like your website and mobile app. Demonstrating value on a pilot can help build the case for broader integration over time.

4. Deliver real-time relevance:

Customers value signals that show a brand is paying attention, whether that’s an update on a delay or a timely reminder about a booking. Staying relevant in real time helps reinforce the promise you’ve made and keeps the journey feeling seamless.

Where to begin? Review your existing communications and identify the points where people most often reach out first, such as journey changes. Introduce proactive alerts or notifications in that area to demonstrate the benefit of real-time relevance before expanding to other moments.

5. Integrate your ecosystem

Most travel experiences rely on a network of partners and systems. Integrating technologies and services around a shared standard helps your brand keep its promise even when parts of the journey sit outside your direct control.

Where to begin? Work with key partners to map your end-to-end customer experience and discuss where hand-offs create friction. From there, explore small data-sharing or API pilots to close the most critical gaps before tackling larger-scale IT integration.

6. Empower employees

Frontline teams are the face of your customer experience, but they can only deliver good service when they have the correct information and confidence (and authority) to act. True employee empowerment combines a positive attitude with easy system access that staff need to support travellers in the moment.

Where to begin? Work with staff to understand where they struggle to help customers, noting whether the barriers are policy, training or technology. Prioritise practical improvements, such as simplifying access to data or creating quick-reference guides, removing blockers or enabling teams to offer personalised customer service.

7. Create human moments

Small gestures count for a lot. A “welcome back” at reception or a crew member checking dietary preferences before offering meal options can have as much impact as a major technology rollout.

Where to begin? Enable teams to capture small personal details within a CRM system or customer record, and make that information accessible to every channel and user. When data flows through the same platforms that power your booking system, app, website and frontline tools, it’s easier to deliver human touches consistently.

Refining these elements together transforms a set of channels into a seamless experience, providing customers with the consistency they expect.

Disruptions are the real test

Even the best-designed experiences face disruption. Weather, strikes, operational delays and staffing shortages are constants in travel, and customers know it. What defines their loyalty is not whether you can prevent every problem, but how you handle the moments when their plans unravel.

Clear, timely communication is critical to customer loyalty. An effective omnichannel strategy makes this possible by delivering consistent updates and practical alternatives across every channel your customers use. When people feel informed and supported, a problematic situation can generate more goodwill than a flawless trip.

AI and predictive analytics can also enhance this response by flagging potential issues, triggering proactive alerts, and even initiating rebooking or compensation offers before customers request them.

How LNER turned booking habits into better experiences

It’s easiest to see the value of a strong omnichannel approach if we look at a real-world example. UK rail company LNER wanted to raise the standard of its customer experience, asking Gate One to shape its digital strategy.

Our research uncovered a critical (if obvious) pattern: customers tended to start their booking on a desktop computer, then switch to their mobile web browser or the LNER app once they were on the move.

That insight shifted LNER’s omnichannel investment priorities. Instead of trying to keep customers in a single channel, the company focused on strengthening the touchpoints where they were already choosing to engage. For example, ensuring desktop booking is quick and easy, while making mobile and the LNER app the hub for real-time travel updates, seat guidance and ancillary services.

By starting with how people actually behave, rather than assuming how the journey worked, LNER created a clearer digital roadmap and identified new ways to enhance the overall experience. Our research also revealed fresh opportunities to add value at the points where customers are most engaged, from food pre-ordering to loyalty features within the app.

LNER’s experience underlines a broader point for all travel companies to consider – omnichannel strategies deliver the most value when they follow the customer, rather than an idealistic journey mapped out in advance.

It also shows how insight-led changes can create new commercial opportunities. A well-executed omnichannel strategy, linking data, people and partners, drives a better customer experience, higher spend and repeat bookings.

Why joined-up journeys keep customers coming back

Loyalty can’t be collected in points or miles. It’s earned through consistency and trust. That trust grows when you treat omnichannel as a continuous practice rather than a one-off project.

Delays, disruptions and external factors will always be part of travel. What sets leading brands apart is how well the elements you can control – channels, data, employees and partners – work together to support customers when it matters most.

To build lasting loyalty, keep investing in behaviour-driven improvements and use real insights to guide where to focus next. Each refinement creates positive, joined-up experiences that translate into repeat bookings and advocacy.

When customers know that, whatever happens, your brand will deliver a reliable and convenient experience at every stage of the journey, they book again – and they recommend you to others.