Q: Intent to Return vs. Net Promoter: which better predicts guest return rates?

Asking someone how likely they are to recommend your resort has become a mainstay on guest surveys partly because of how well these Net Promoter Scores (NPS) can predict the return rates of guests. A common alternative is Intent to Return (ITR) where someone is asked directly how likely they are to come back. But when placed head to head, which does a better job of forseeing future behavior? Here’s what we found.

The Goods
For this analysis we took survey data from 12 different resorts. We took raw scores chosen by each respondent and then found whether or not each one returned the following season. Both NPS and ITR are judged on a 1-10 scale, so it made the comparison pretty straightforward.

On the X-axis is their NPS or ITR score. On y-axis is the return average return rate for those guests.

Right of the bat, you notice that the two charts are surprisingly similar. At nearly each score, 1-10, the likelihood of someone returning is within just a few percentage points whether you ask them how likely they are to recommend you to someone else or directly query the likelihood of a return visit.

What This Means
At first, it may be a bit surprising that asking a question about recommendation could act as such a solid indicator, but lets look at the details. First, a guest who rates their ITR as 10 is slightly more likely to return than a guest with an NPS of 10.

Below that, however, NPS scores show equal or higher return rates than ITR. The difference isn’t large, but was consistent for the resorts we looked at. So, in terms of predicting when people aren’t going to return, again, ITR comes out slightly on top.

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