ResortPass Checks In on Personalization and Checks Out With 30% Higher CTR

ResortPass is redefining the hospitality industry by offering access to luxury hotel amenities—such as pools, spas, and cabanas—without requiring an overnight stay. Partnering with over 2,000 hotels across 250+ cities, ResortPass provides a unique solution for both local residents seeking a daycation and travelers looking to enhance their vacation experience. Whether it’s a local resident in New York enjoying a pool day at a nearby hotel or a traveler in Miami booking a spa experience while staying at an Airbnb, ResortPass caters to diverse customer needs with its flexible, location-based offerings.

Fatima Rakla, Senior Director of Lifecycle and Retention Marketing at ResortPass, brings over a decade of startup experience to her role. Since joining the company, she has focused on driving customer engagement and retention strategies, leveraging Iterable to innovate and scale ResortPass’s marketing efforts.

As ResortPass expanded its global footprint, the need for personalized, location-based communication became paramount. Customers expected tailored recommendations that aligned with their preferences and behaviors, but achieving this level of personalization presented several challenges. Location data, while critical, was often messy and inconsistent. “Consumers expect that relevant communication, especially for companies like ResortPass, where they’re really focused on a location-based product,” said Jon Uland, Partner and Head of Operations at Modular Marketing, a full-service lifecycle marketing agency.

Compounding the issue, ResortPass’s marketing team had limited access to engineering resources. “At a startup, you need to move fast,” explained Fatima Rakla. “Instead of waiting for resources, we decided to try doing this in Iterable, which allowed us to act quickly. Taking that risk paid off.” ResortPass needed a solution that could deliver impactful personalization without relying on engineering-heavy implementations, enabling the marketing team to remain agile and innovative.

To address the challenge of delivering personalized, location-based recommendations, ResortPass implemented a sophisticated solution powered by Iterable’s out-of-the-box tools. With the help of Modular Marketing, they built a sophisticated location intelligence engine using Iterable’s Catalog and a custom API endpoint to power their moments-based marketing strategy. This hybrid approach allowed them to prove value quickly and then scale to handle the growing complexity and volume of location-targeting data. This engine enables dynamic and hyper-personalized content that drives booking revenue through contextually relevant communications.

“Iterable made it possible. It is incredibly flexible and easy to use, allowing us to validate and scale an idea before seamlessly transitioning to a more real-time solution,” said Fatima.

The foundation of the solution was unifying and activating disparate data. ResortPass used its existing data sources and pushed data directly into Iterable using Smart Ingest. This eliminated the need for complex, bespoke engineering while allowing Iterable’s powerful data architecture to instantly activate user location, pulling from multiple data points such as zip codes, IP addresses, and behavioral events like hotel searches or bookings. These inputs automatically adapt the “preferred location” field, enabling personalized recommendations for both locals and travelers.

The marketing team’s ability to directly manage and refine the modern personalization engine within Iterable was the true game-changer, enabling dynamic, enhanced segmentation targeting based on geographical relevance and travel context. “The ease of troubleshooting was amazing. We could make optimizations by adding events or user attributes to make it more sophisticated and dynamic, all without needing engineering support,” Fatima added.

This approach resulted in:

• 2x Increase in Audience Coverage: Identifying user preferred location preferences based on implicit, behavioral data and explicit, user-provided location data. This meant more eligible recipients for ResortPass promotions—directly affecting the bottom line.
• 30% Increase in Engagement: The preferred location engine drove a 30% increase in customer engagement, resulting in more directly attributable revenue.

The shift to a moments-based marketing strategy had a measurable and immediate impact on ResortPass’s business. By leveraging real-time, location-based signals tailored to user behavior and preferences, ResortPass was able to deliver the right message at the perfect moment, driving a significant boost in customer engagement.

Personalization has become a core growth driver at ResortPass. The initial logic built and proven within Iterable now serves as the foundation for expanding personalization across their website and app experience, making it a real growth lever for understanding and engaging customers across the board. This strategic focus ensures that contextual relevance—the hallmark of their success in marketing channels—will drive greater conversion and loyalty company-wide.