How Big Data Analytics is reshaping the travel industry
Big data and analytics are primarily reshaping all aspects of the travel industry, and companies that don’t adapt will be left behind in the data-driven industry. Big Data Analytics is improving the customer experience, increasing business efficiency and revenue management in the travel industry.
The travel industry generates and operates with vast amounts of data on reservations, inquiries, itineraries, hotel reservations, car rentals, trains, airlines, rate tables, customer feedback, etc., leaving long trails of data. Travel is overwhelmed with data and companies are increasing their dollar spend for the insights it gives them, according to the new State of Data and Analysis Report in Eye for Travel’s 2017 travel report.
According to the report, 74.5% of participants anticipate an increase in the budget for data and analytics in 2017. More than 50% of the sample suggest a budget increase of 6% or more and 30% expect an increase of 11 % or more. . Participants were most optimistic about budget increases in Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe and finally North America. This geographic divide is governed by how participants see the year ahead for the travel and tourism industry as a whole. In both Asia-Pacific and Europe, 16.3% of the sample size is neutral or negative about growth prospects this year compared to 23.3% of North American respondents.
The travel and tourism industry has realized the importance of data analytics and is in a comfortable position to further exploit it to its advantage. The travel industry is rapidly catching up with other industries in terms of data analysis and implementation. These planned budget increases will help get the most value from the vast amount of data that already exists in silos and more to be generated in the future, by employing analytic techniques that can help derive actionable insights from it.
Below are some of the improvements that travel intelligence, through Big Data Analytics, can bring in the two areas: customer experience and improving business efficiency.
- Personalized customer experience – The availability of personal data from social media platforms and Big Data Analytics helps make travel more responsive and focused on traveler needs and preferences. Better targeted services lead to better customer relationships or more loyal customers and ultimately better revenue.
- Personalized customer experience – The availability of personal data from social media platforms and Big Data Analytics helps make travel more responsive and focused on traveler needs and preferences. Better targeted services lead to better customer relationships or more loyal customers and ultimately better revenue.
- Superior pricing strategy – Big Data Analytics is effectively replacing traditional manual rate analysis with intelligent automation by collecting, indexing, filtering and analyzing existing and real-time data from multiple sources. Dynamic analysis of competitor prices will help travel companies create a better pricing strategy for travel. Big Data Analytics enables travel sites to forecast price changes over time, to better serve the needs of their consumers.
- Customer analysis and improvement of services. – Study buying patterns, objections, and customer feedback by analyzing data collected from online forums, social media platforms, front desk, call center conversations, etc. will help identify customer intent and assist in designing a business strategy.
- Marketing and sales optimization. – Big Data Analytics is increasingly being used to optimize marketing efforts to target travelers by personalizing offers based on their requirements. By analyzing a large amount of unstructured data, service providers will gain valuable insights that enable them to deliver targeted offers at the right time, place, and channel. Service providers can also track their customers and make real-time, location-relevant offers by enabling GPS technology with data analytics.
It is obvious that Big Data has the potential to revolutionize the travel industry. A strong Big Data Analytics strategy is becoming indispensable in determining consumer trends, travel patterns, threats and opportunities.
However, Big Data Analytics in the travel industry is still in its embryonic stage, the industry is trying to overcome challenges such as lack of data scientists, affordable infrastructure, and implementation costs. However, considering the current pace of the digital revolution, it is obvious that early adopters will surely have a superior advantage.
