The Loyalty Playbook: How to Turn One-Time Visitors into Regulars

ROLLER recently hosted the Loyalty Playbook webinar, a practical look at how attraction operators can use loyalty to bring guests back more often and grow revenue. ROLLER's own Megan Zemaitis, Manager of Customer Onboarding, was joined by Jeremy Hoyum, a 30-year industry veteran, founder of Salt & Light Leadership Group, and chair of the IAAPA Family Entertainment Center Committee.

Together they covered why loyalty matters, how to build a program that actually changes guest behavior, which rewards motivate guests the most, how to measure success, and how loyalty and memberships work together. Here are the key takeaways.

🎥 Missed the live session? Watch the full recording here:

Why loyalty matters for attractions

Competition is fierce and acquisition keeps getting more expensive, so the smartest move is often to work with the guests already coming through your doors. You have already paid to get them in, and loyalty is how you get them to come back more often and spend more.

The demand is clear. ROLLER's 2026 Pulse Report found that 84.5% of guests say a loyalty program influences where they book. Additionally, guests tend to spend roughly 2.5 times more once they’re part of a loyalty program.

Jeremy walked through simple math to show the upside: Take 2,000 loyalty guests visiting 1.5 times a year at a $45 per cap: that is $135,000 a year. Add just one more visit per year, to 2.5 visits, and the same 2,000 guests are worth $225,000. That’s a $90,000 annual lift.

The exact numbers will vary by venue, but the principle holds: small increases in frequency add up fast.

Step 1: Define your objective

The most common mistake Jeremy sees is operators launching a program without defining what it is meant to change. Before choosing rewards, ask yourself one question: what guest behavior do we want to modify?

Most goals fall into one of three buckets:

1. Increase repeat visitation: When acquisition costs are high and visit frequency is low, the goal is to turn first-time visitors into repeat guests.
2. Increase spend per guest: When visit frequency is strong but the average basket is small, the goal is to capture more value from each visit.
3. Encourage purchases of a specific product: When you want to build a habit around a particular attraction or product (say, a higher-margin cafe item or your birthday packages), the goal is to increase the purchase volume of that featured attraction or product.

Each calls for a different approach, so keep it simple and pick one to start.

This kind of intentional, data-backed loyalty is newer to the industry, because until recently fragmented systems made it hard to track whether a punch card or a blanket discount was actually working.

Step 2: Match the rule to your objective

Inside ROLLER, there are three ways to configure a loyalty program, each mapped to one of those objectives:

1. Points for Spend: Guests earn points as they spend, then redeem them on products or discounts. It is the simplest rule and the most common starting point, aimed at driving repeat visitation. At online checkout, ROLLER prompts signed-in guests to redeem what they have earned.
2. Spend Milestones: Guests unlock a reward when they hit a cumulative spending threshold, for example spend $150 and get $20 off or a free platter. This is designed to grow spend per guest, encouraging bigger baskets and add-ons as guests work toward the next milestone.
3. Product Milestone: The digital version of the punch card: buy five jump passes, get the sixth free. It is a great place to start with a clear bread-and-butter attraction, with no paper cards to lose and nothing for staff to track by hand.

Step 3: Choose rewards that motivate guests

Operators often worry that rewards give away too much. In practice, the most effective rewards carry a high perceived value but a low actual cost.

Jeremy and Megan pointed to made-in-house treats like cotton candy, popcorn, and ICEEs: a guest sees a $5 value, while your cost is cents. A free popcorn also makes guests thirsty, so you often capture a drink sale alongside the free reward.

In terms of what guests actually want, ROLLER's 2026 Pulse Report shows that simple and tangible rewards win. The two most preferred rewards are discounts on future visits and free entry after a set number of visits. Both options are easy to understand and turn repeat behavior into a visible win.

The mindset shift is to treat rewards as a way to drive behavior. If 100 guests who wouldn’t have come otherwise each spend 70 to 90% of full value, that beats the zero you would have made. Unless you’re already at capacity, and most venues aren’t, there is room for profitable revenue even at a discounted rate.

Two kinds of promotion can lift the program further. Sign-up bonuses, like a limited-time offer of bonus points, give guests a reason to enroll today rather than someday. And loyalty-only promotions, offers reserved for members, do double duty: they make current members feel rewarded, and they give non-members a tangible reason to join.

The key is keeping loyalty rewards distinct from what any walk-in gets, so there is a real reason to sign up.

Step 4: Measure what matters

A loyalty program isn’t a light switch. Track a few things from the start:

• Annual value of a guest: per cap multiplied by visits, your baseline to improve against.
• Enrollment (penetration) rate: the share of guests who sign up. This is the critical early KPI, so use sign-up bonuses to drive it, and don’t cut the program before it has runway.
• Repeat visit frequency: watch it creep up over the following couple of quarters.
• Reward redemption rate: low redemption is a warning that the reward isn’t resonating, or that guests have so long to redeem that they forget.

On that last point, Megan recommends a three-month expiration on rewards: it’s long enough to give guests a real chance to return, but short enough that they don't forget.

And make sure to give the program time to work. Expect an early signal at around 90 days, a clearer read on whether your rules and rewards are landing by six months, and real revenue impact by the 12-month mark.

How loyalty and memberships work together

Loyalty and membership are often confused, but they are different products that work best hand in hand. Memberships typically reach 5 to 15% of guests, who commit financially upfront. Loyalty can enroll 20 to 30%, with no upfront commitment, and behavior drives the rewards.

That makes loyalty the bridge in the guest journey. Rather than jumping straight from first-time visitor to member, you can convert a guest to loyalty on their first or second visit, keep them engaged longer, and let a great experience move them from first-time guest, to loyalty member, to frequent guest, to member, to advocate.

Loyalty doesn't stop once someone becomes a member, either. It gives you a way to keep rewarding members and prove ongoing value, which helps with retention.

Read more: Memberships and Loyalty Programs: Why the Best Venues Run Both

Top tips to make loyalty stick

Even a well-designed program only works if your team and your guests actively use it. Megan and Jeremy shared tips for both sides.

Get your team behind it

• Explain why it matters: Show staff the cost of acquiring a new guest versus the value of a returning one, so they understand the stakes. And follow through: if you promise a staff incentive, pay it out, or you lose their buy-in.
• Make it easy to invite guests: Give staff one or two simple lines to use, and lean on tools like waivers to attach a guest to a booking and opt them in on the spot.
• Give them a conversation framework: Signing a guest up is really a micro-sale, so teach a simple framework: Connect, Qualify, Present, Close (CQPC). Connect first by asking how their visit is going, the step most people skip and the most important, since it lowers the guard of guests who don't want to be sold to. Then qualify their interest ("would you like to earn rewards for future visits?"), present the program's benefits clearly, and close by signing them up on the spot or sending an invitation to their inbox.
• Create staff incentives tied to performance: Monthly contests with rewards like a gift card or free shift meals work well and cost less than they seem (a $10 meal might cost you $3). ROLLER's staff-performance reports let you run and track those contests.
• Share results back with the team: Keep it visible and a little competitive, a scoreboard in the break room or a shout-out in the morning huddle, so people can trade what's working.

Get your guests using it

• Promote the program everywhere, from in-venue signage to a pop-up on your website.
• Make sign-up effortless, for example a QR code to your online checkout so guests can join themselves and skip the line at the point of sale.
• Communicate the value upfront so guests can see the benefit at a glance.
• Stay in touch between visits: ROLLER automatically emails guests when they earn or are close to a reward, and reminds them before rewards expire.
• Make redemption visible and easy: ROLLER prompts signed-in guests to apply available rewards right at online checkout.
• Celebrate milestones: A "you just earned a free jump" email, or a staff member flagging an unused reward at check-in, turns a saving into a happy moment guests remember.

Read more: How to Get Your Team and Guests Behind Your Loyalty Program

Putting it into action

Start simple: pick one objective, choose the matching program type, and select a reward guests genuinely want. Give it at least three months, get your team trained and incentivized, and make signing up effortless.

The guests are already coming back. Loyalty is how you capture more of that repeat value on purpose.

Want to see how ROLLER can help you build and run a loyalty program? Book a free demo today.

You can also download the 2026 ROLLER Pulse Report for more insight on what turns guests into regulars.