Within all travel and tourism businesses, making the most out of every single booking is key. The adoption of data analytics will aid the recovery of this sector, playing a pivotal role in helping these businesses understand everything from managing customer expectations to generating the maximum revenue from every single sale.
Bring IT On looks at how data is used in the travel and tourism industry to benefit both the business and the customer.
How is data used in the travel industry?
Strategic data analysis allows you to extract segments from the data at your disposal like:
- Knowing what locations your customers are looking at
- What travel extras they are interested in
- Anticipating future demand more accurately,
- Optimising pricing strategies,
- Target marketing more precisely
- Improving the customer experience
Data can benefit those in the travel industry in many important ways, allowing them to make more evidence-driven decisions such as the following:
Management of Revenue
To maximise financial results, travel and tourism companies need to be able to sell the right product at the right price, to the correct customer, at the perfect moment, through the ideal channel. Data analysis is invaluable for this.
Hoteliers can use Internal data like past occupancy rates, room revenue and current bookings and combine this with external data they have available to them, like information about local events, flights and school holidays, to more accurately predict and anticipate demand. The result? hotels can manage room rates more effectively by increasing them at times of high demand. This will in turn maximise the revenue for the business.
Seal Of Approval
Consumers are heavily influenced by the reviews and opinions that previous customers leave on a wide range of different platforms. From social media, search engines and specific review websites, potential customers are checking these reviews religiously and comparing different hotels before they even consider making a booking.
This data, combined with feedback acquired internally, can be used to spot trending strengths and weaknesses, and where customers are satisfied or disheartened. Once this information is gathered and processed, hotels can then use it to improve upon training, make improvements and ensure future reviews are positive.
Breakthrough Marketing
In the travel industry, marketing can be difficult to get right. This is because so many potential travellers are looking at different destinations, price brackets and hotel ratings for example. Data analysis can help travel and tourism companies be more strategic in their approach to marketing by targeting people based on trends that exist.
Once the tourism industry understands the similarities between customers via data analysis, the best marketing opportunities can arise through the segmentation of that market. This can allow direct marketing messages to be sent depending on the time at the potential customer’s location, allowing more targeted promotional content to be delivered.
Customer Service
All businesses in the travel and tourism industry have several interactions with customers, each one providing valuable data. This data can be used to improve the overall customer journey map, including everything from conversations that take place via social media and the feedback given in online reviews.
When used to its full potential, this information can reveal which services customers use more frequently, which they do not use at all, and which they are most likely to request or talk about
Through this data, companies can make more informed, data-driven decisions about
The services they currently provide
The services they no longer need to provide
The services they want to introduce
The new technology they choose to invest in
Who Makes these Big Data Decisions?
The responsibility of data-driven analysis belongs to a travel data analyst.
Responsibilities of this job role include:
Managing supplier, client, partner and product databases
Acquisition, interpretation and analysis of pricing, products and contracts
Updating database systems accurately and maintaining reports efficiently
Filtering and interpreting client and partner data, analysing trends and target groups, and assisting with marketing, recognition and reward programs
Developing and implementing data collection systems and other strategies that ensure both data efficiency and quality
Assisting with the implementation of process improvement and opportunities
Work closely with other team members to prioritise business and information needs
A tendency to stay current with the industry’s best practices and trends
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