Many hoteliers nowadays are overwhelmed by the challenges presented by Big Data and are missing out on opportunities as a result. Data management doesn’t need to be daunting. In this blog, we focus on three
Data is information (facts, statistics, codes), BIG Data refers to the volume. Hotels can leverage the power of big data to see measurable results at their properties.
Travelers leave digital footprints everywhere they go, presenting opportunities for hotels to gain insight into their behavior, preferences and interests. We can learn how they book, where they stay, how much they spend and how they feel about the hotels they choose.
Marketing Data
The ultimate goal of hotel marketing is to drive demand, primarily for rooms, but also for meetings, events, food and beverage, spa services, and any other services your hotel provides. As a hotel marketer, you have a variety of tools to choose from for reaching travelers. This includes your website, search engines, online travel agencies, advertising and promotions, the GDS, email marketing, loyalty programs, social media, mobile application, telephone and walk-ins.
Rather than try to reach all travelers on all channels, you must determine which channels are most productive and which guests are most profitable. This involves determining who your best guests are, how they heard about you and why they chose your hotel. Assess the costs of acquisition on each marketing channel, taking into considering not only marketing costs but also factors like total guest spend, stay frequency and related expenditures. This data will help you identify your target markets, key value propositions and primary marketing channels.
Revenue Data
Revenue data is another crucial part of the data management puzzle for hotels. Whereas the traditional role of marketing is to create demand, the role of the revenue manager is to manage demand by controlling pricing and inventory.There are opportunities to harness the power of Big Data to better optimize pricing, inventory and distribution channels, to predict traveler behavior and to develop more accurate revenue and demand forecasts.
Traditionally, revenue managers have relied on historical data to predict future patterns, however increasingly, real-time data is available to monitor traveler behavior and adjust rates and availability “on the fly”.
Review Data
Review data is extracted from traveler reviews which collectively forms a hotel’s online reputation. Few travelers will book a hotel without checking out online reviews first. For hoteliers, reviews have three main applications. As a marketing tool to attract travelers, as a benchmarking tool to compare review performance against competitors, and as a feedback tool to guide improvements.
It is fairly easy to track and measure because review sites require travelers to rate businesses, typically on a scale of 1 to 5. Some sites also allow reviewers to rate various attributes such as service, quality and value. Hotels can also easily compare their performance with other hotels.
Today there’s more data available to us than ever before and it moves at a rapid pace, often exceeding the processing capacity of conventional database systems. Solutions like ReviewPro allow you to identify patterns, benchmark performance, and customize data views and reports for different roles within your organization.
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