As part of a sweeping overhaul of its loyalty program, in 2022, IHG Hotels & Resorts launched IHG One Rewards and a brand new mobile app. Leadership at IHG had a vision for a new mobile app with a full suite of unique features and functionality for loyalty members that would help set the program apart – and so far, it has. 

The company, which counts more than 6,000 hotels across 18 brands including Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, planned for a groundbreaking feature that provides loyalty members with instant gratification through IHG’s Food & Beverage (F&B) program. Allowing guests to redeem vouchers for F&B purchases on-property through the IHG One Rewards mobile app had never been done before. But, because it required many moving parts working in sync and sharing data in real time, it proved to be a challenge.

IHG turned to Hapi, a Cloud Data Hub that exposes event streams and transactional APIs from hotel systems at scale, for help. While Hapi’s platform provided the framework for the data streams, it was the collective knowledge of experienced teams from IHG and Hapi that proved key in getting the project across the finish line.

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Unlocking the Data

‍The vision was to allow members to track progress toward Milestone Rewards through the IHG One Rewards app, and then choose the rewards that matter most to them. Members would be offered a choice from a selection of rewards, one being an F&B Reward that can be redeemed on property directly through the app. 

The capability of accessing real-time reservation and folio data and enabling real-time postings across thousands of Property Management System (PMS) instances didn’t exist previously. Creating this capability was a massive undertaking, something that the teams at IHG needed some expert help with. IHG engaged the Hapi team to help solve this challenge, and together they worked toward a solution. The teams performed forensics on IHG’s tech stack and unpacked legacy workflows to determine where specific data was coming from and where it was being stored. This was a necessary first step in creating a new capability for the IHG portfolio without inadvertently affecting other pre-existing capabilities. 

‍Speed of Deployment

Once the data was mapped and the solution was fully vetted, the next significant challenge would be deploying it to thousands of IHG hotels across the globe. 

Hapi and IHG’s technology deployment team worked together to develop an installer program that could be run remotely at each property that would end up saving hundreds of man hours while ensuring that configurations were fully standardized and consistent. The teams tested deployment at 100 hotels, then 1,000, and the installer program was fully deployed to all of IHG’s hotels in the Americas within a week.

The standardization and consistency that can be obtained by leveraging the Hapi Platform has allowed IHG to provide a new member-facing benefit that can be fulfilled across thousands of properties and multiple Property Management Systems. 

‍Solving for Innovation‍

Today, through the combined brainpower of Hapi and IHG’s experienced technology teams, IHG One Rewards members now have more ways to receive instant gratification while on property. 

What seems like simple functionality at face value ended up requiring new partnerships, new integrations and new capabilities. Through the power of technology, IHG can offer a personal touch that can surprise and delight guests, which will keep them coming back.