PUBLISHED DATE: 2026-09-08 01:57:18

Loyalty in Travel and Dining Is Broken. Here is How to Fix It | Publicis Sapient

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Loyalty is Broken. Here’s How Travel & Dining Brands Can Fix it

Acquisition costs are up 35 percent. Lifetime value? Just 4.5 percent. This report shows how leading brands are winning loyalty with AI, first-party data and better recovery despite today’s travel chaos.

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Meet the author

Giancarlo Anancia

Jagdish Ghanshani

Travel & Hospitality Lead, North America

In this report

A loyalty reckoning for travel and dining brands
What the leaders are doing differently
Customer Acquisition in the Age of AI

A loyalty reckoning for travel and dining brands

From 2020 to 2025, the travel and dining industries were pushed to the brink. Customer expectations soared. Service was shaky. Economic pressures kept mounting. And legacy loyalty strategies cracked under all that weight.

New research from Adobe, Publicis Sapient and Incisiv shows just how much the game has changed: Customer acquisition costs are up 35 percent, but customer lifetime value has barely moved—just a 4.5 percent increase. Many brands are overspending to keep the customers they already have, while missing the mark with a rising generation of travelers who expect more.

What the leaders are doing differently

But not every brand is stuck. The ones pulling ahead are leaning into AI-driven personalization, the smarter use of first-party data and faster recovery when things go wrong. This report lays out a roadmap for transforming customer relationships—from acquisition through retention—in a world where loyalty is harder than ever to earn.

Customer Acquisition in the Age of AI

In this webinar, hear from Julie Hoffmann, Global GM - Industry Strategy Travel, Hospitality, Dining & Loyalty, Adobe; Melanie Harris, Principal, Digital Strategy Travel, Hospitality & Live Events, Adobe; Gaurav Pant, Chief Insights Officer, Incisiv; and Jagdish Ghanshani, Managing Partner, Travel & Hospitality, Publicis Sapient.