The increased adoption for visibility of hotel services and increasing use of gifting cards during festivals and fests such as Christmas and others to attract new customers to propel further growth in the Global Hotel Gift Cards Market

Covid-19 Impact & Market Status

The recent COVID-19 outbreak started in Wuhan (China) in December 2019 and has rapidly spread around the world since then. As of March 2020, China, Italy, Iran, Spain, the Republic of Korea, France, Germany, and the United States were among the countries with the highest number of positive cases and reported deaths. Due to lockdowns, travel bans, and company closures, the COVID-19 epidemic has impacted economies and businesses in a number of countries. As a result of the outbreak, the global food and beverage industry is one of the major businesses experiencing substantial disruptions such as supply chain disruptions, technology events cancellations, and office closures. With the presence of and the largest raw material suppliers, China is the global industrial powerhouse. The overall market breakdown due to COVID-19 is also affecting the growth of the bacon market due to shutting down of factories, obstacle in supply chain, and downturn in world economy.

The pandemic has exposed inequity as an immediate concern. Fluctuations in supply and demand share due to enforcement of stringent lockdown measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic have left several businesses in disarray. In addition to uncertainty of profit in the short term, some industries including global hotel gift card market are expected to keep the pace even if pandemic continues. On the down side, the gift card industry has been facing a slight decrease in demand after the outbreak of COVID-19 and socia distancing technology measures taken by governments. Due to lockdowns across the world, product availability in the market has also been hit, which will hamper the growth of the hotel gift card market to some extent, at least in the short term. According Ontario media department, the monthly occupancy rate of hotels in Canada from 2019 to 2020 has decreased drastically. In August 2020 since February 2020, the occupancy rate of the hotel industry in Canada was 58.5 percent in February which has reduced to 13.6% in April. The hotel gift card market thrives on festivals and appreciation for employees. These cards are neither directly given to the customer or are given through online platforms like e-gifting. Gift cards are prepaid payment cards containing a specific amount of money, and render the same role as that of paper gift cards. Moreover, the hotel gift card market is majorly driven by the younger generation across the globe and product innovation along with hotel and entertainment trends are driving its growth. Increasing demand from developing countries is aiding overall market growth.

This research report offers a detailed market outlook of the global hotel gift cards market depending upon the current economic situation and developments in the application, type, and regional segments.

It does a deep analysis of the impact of covid-19 on the market and recovery strategies applied by market players to restore the growth trends and maintain market competitiveness. The in-depth insights documented in the report enable well-informed investment decisions by for the new payers, aspirants, and also the well-established ones in the global hotel gift cards market.  

Closed Loop Hotel Gift Cards Type to Emerge as the Most Lucrative Segment

Global hotel gift cards market is classified into open loop, closed loop, and e-gifting type segments. Among these, the closed loop type hotel gift card is poised for substantial market growth in the years ahead. Closed loop gift cards are likely to attract hotel and hospitality sector for lot of pros both for customers and business holders. Especially for a small business, because it is generally the easiest system to set up and it often comes at no cost. Closed-loop cards ensure that the card receiver will return to the hotel and bring additional revenue. Also, closed-loop gift card can only be used at one location. This brings customer retention for hotels. Adding on, merchant banks will usually offer gift cards for little or no cost at all. This is because they make a huge profit from processing cards. Selecting a gift card program provided by a merchant bank relieves hotel team from deal with integration issues and card processor or merchant bank will consider upgrading it for free. The merchant bank or credit card processor already has a system in place to track transactions, so gift card program will work seamlessly as well. The aforementioned advantages make the hotel to seamlessly choose closed loop over other type of cards and accelerate the market.

Accommodation Applications to Ensure Revenue Maximization

Global hotel gift cards market is classified as Accommodation, Delicacy, Parking, and Others type applications. Among these, the accommodation type hotel gift cards application segment is poised for substantial market growth in the years ahead. Accommodation is the primary motto of choosing a hotel. The customers seek various offers in hotel accommodation than other amenities. This makes the global hotel gift cards market consumes the offer in this segment. Although gift cards are often set to a holistic service, many customers will decide on accommodation quality and comfort. The gift card encourages customers to stay at the hotel first time to use the gift cards. Once customers start to experience the service, it is likely that they’ll end up sticking to same hotel even if it costs slightly more than the gift card’s value. Moreover, gift card is designed to match hotel logo and brand; it essentially works as a marketing tool in the customer’s pocket. As customer purchase more gift cards for accommodation to give to their friends on birthdays and holidays, hotel brand continues to be dispersed among new customers. This acquires more customers and converts leads into the prospects without any marketing effort and pushes the market ahead over the forecasted period.

Backed by Immense Development Potential North America Hotel Gift Cards Market to Sail Ahead

Performance analysis of global hotel gift cards market based on regional segmentation states that North America is the most mature market for hotel gift cards adoption and investments. The region is likely to garner maximum revenue share of global hotel gift cards market in the years ahead, mostly from 2021 to 2028.

This is evident from rapid investments in new digital technologies, shift in user preferences, applications in various industry verticals such as gaming, others, delicacy media, and parking across leading countries in the region such as Canada and United States.  

Additionally, technological advancements due to various research and developments initiatives, the presence of tech giants, commercial mergers and partnerships, expansions of the leading companies in regional and global market are improving the growth feasibility of global hotel gift cards market in North America.

Hotel gift cards market is either directly or indirectly affected by various industries such as travel, tourism, hospitality, and others. According to Canada department of tourism, the travel and tourism industry is a dominant industry in Canada, where the contribution of tourism to the gross domestic product (GDP) totalled to around USD 27.85 billion in 2015. The majority of this came from leisure travel spending which accounted for 62 % of the direct contribution of travel and tourism to Canadian GDP. The increased price for accommodations makes both customers and hotels to opt suitable marketing strategies including gift cards. As gifts cards are electronically used, they lose border limitations hence applicable globally. The aforesaid data leaves the market a positive hope to accelerate in post COVID-19 pandemic and forecasted period.

Vast increase in digitization has paved new growth opportunities, thus furthering the inclusion of Hotel Gift Cards

The increase adoption for visibility of hotel services and increasing use of gifting cards during festivals and fests such as Christmas and others to attract new customers is one of the key driving factors of Global hotel gift cards market. Statistic shows that in 2017, approximately, 72 percent of respondents stated that higher discounts would make them consider using coupons or gift cards more often in the future. One of the prominent driving factors is that gift cards is the increasing demand for gift cards from the corporate sector. Corporate houses, in recognition of employee’s contribution to their firms, are presenting gift cards to them. Various hotels and third parties offer corporate hotel gift cards for companies. Around 30% of the hotel gift card market revenue is driven by the business-to-business sales channel. As such, the high use of gift cards in the corporate sector is one of the primary factors driving the growth of the global hotel gift card market.  

The recent COVID-19 outbreak started in Wuhan (China) in December 2019 and has rapidly spread around the world since then. As of March 2020, China, Italy, Iran, Spain, the Republic of Korea, France, Germany, and the United States were among the countries with the highest number of positive cases and reported deaths. Due to lockdowns, travel bans, and company closures, the COVID-19 epidemic has impacted economies and businesses in a number of countries.

A hotel gift card is a type of stored-value card loaded with funds for future discretionary use with a specific amount of cash. Once this figure is spent down, the card can no longer be used. Gift cards also have expiration dates, which are often much shorter than that of prepaid cards. Hotel gift help hotels for easy setup in customer management system and can either offer a monetary value or be a complete package including accommodation. The main advantage of hotels gift cards is that its proposals to use the services of the hotel at lower prices than the usual price. Global hotel gift card market players are well established with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative methods of marketing & customer relationship management. The moderate threat of new entrants coupled with emerging online bookings with paced upgradation for the market has resulted in market consolidation.

Growing preference for the use of smart phones for booking and payment using mobile barcodes, quick-response codes, and payment systems that make booking easy for customers is being witnessed. Another prominent factor contributing to open loop gift cards segment growth is enhanced security. As these cards can be used to purchase from multiple retailers, even in case of bankruptcy of a retailer, it can be used elsewhere. This prevents the gift card from becoming redundant. The launch of various booking apps by companies is making bookings very easy for customers which increase the chances of tourists opting for e-gift cards across the globe. In addition, growing popularity of the e-gifting trend is expected to expand the global hotel gift card market at a significant rate over the forecast period. This can be attributed to the increasing demand for personalized gift cards by consumers along with the emergence of new players in the online gifting industry. Moreover, a large number of customers are now technologically updated and searching for optimal services that are convenient and economical. This will further accelerate the growth of the hotel gift card market over the coming years.

The global hotel gift cards market has several challenges which could hurdle the market in forecasted period. Currently, purchase of hotel gift cards market is still in its nascent stage but evolving at a rapid pace. One of them is that hotel gift card services should be largely outsourced. Optimally, on-property gift card purchases and redemptions are handled in the property management system (PMS) through an interface between that system and the third-party gift card administration service. A growing number of credible vendors offer global service propositions to provide the gift card services. This brings a lot of effort to establish and constantly upgrade based on customer demography, interests, and other aspects to increase the card purchase. The global hotel gift cards market is expected to open couple of market opportunities in the near future. The current decade is witnessing the digitization of the various industries including hotels via the profusion of new content, data centricity, and the convergence between demand and supply. Various leading hotel chains are also investing in online platforms, along with focusing on customer retention strategies, frequent product launches, various holiday packages, increasing customer base, and merger & acquisition strategies. For instance, Swissotel Hotels & Resorts gift cards are used for accommodation, including spa services, dining, and other leisure activities at any facility managed by Swissotel Hotels & Resorts. For in-house guests, any charge that can be applied to a hotel bill can be paid for with a gift card.

The major players of the global hotel gift cards market are Cass Information System Inc., ACI Worldwide, Liquid Telecom, Fiserv, Digital Virgo, Kubra, Paymentus, Aliaswire, ebpSource, and Eafricalab.

Among all other established and emerging companies and investors. These market players are spread across the world and are aggressive in developing new technologies to lead the market and improve revenue growth. Furthermore, the market players to stay ahead of the competitive landscape are unravelling strategic initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, new product portfolios, and technological innovations.

Hotel Gift Cards Market Scope

Key Segments of the Global Hotel Gift Cards Market

Type Overview, (USD million)

• Open Loop
• Closed Loop
• E-gifting

Application Overview, (USD million)

• Accommodation
• Delicacy
• Parking
• Others

Regional Overview, (USD million)

North America

• U.S
• Canada

Europe

• Germany
• France
• UK
• Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

• China
• India
• Japan
• Rest of Asia Pacific

South America

• Mexico
• Brazil
• Rest of South America

Middle East and South Africa