Taj Hotels, Palaces, Resorts & Safaris and Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts are set to start rolling out a programme next month to enable customers to share their respective loyalty cards.

“We announced the partnership at ILTM (International Luxury Travel Market) last year. The implementation of the programme will start now,” Greg Ward, Vice President – Sales (Regional Sales Office) at Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts told Hospitality Biz India magazine.

He said that both Taj Group’s Inner Circle members and Shangri-La Hotels’ ‘Golden Circle’ loyalty members will be able to “cross fertilise” their points and “redeem their points” mutually in member hotels with this roll out. This loyalty sharing programme is expected to benefit over six million loyalty card members of Taj Group and Shangri-La, he added.

“We will be able to promote our Loyalty membership more aggressively now to future travellers. Alliance with Taj Hotels is a very positive one,” Ward said.

Taj Inner Circle members will be able to take advantage of the programme in geographies like China and South East Asia where Shangri-La has a fairly good footprint.

“We are very strong in China. We have 48 hotels in China. We have three hotels in Australia. In Middle East, we are growing our footprint pretty fast. In the Indian Ocean region, apart from our two hotels in India, we have hotels in Sri Lanka, Maldives and Mauritius,” Ward said.

Taj operates two resorts in the Maldives, the Taj Exotica Resort & Spa and Vivanta by Taj Coral Reef. Hong Kong-based Shangri-La runs the Villingili Resort & Spa in the southernmost Addu atoll and Hotel Jen in capital Male.