One of the main challenges for Hospitality or Hotel executives is achieving the right balance between maintaining memorable guest experiences and meeting the margins and profit obligations. That’s one of the primary motivations for implementing “descriptive analytics,” more known as Business Intelligence, for a better understanding of what is going on and how they can improve it.
But during the last years, this “analytics” approach seems to be not enough, and Predictive Analytics has come into the game. Customers expecting convenience, personalization and excellent service, and the entrance of new and disruptive market players such as Airbnb had put Hotels and other Hospitality companies in a rush for having a perfect understanding of their customer to be able to anticipate to their needs and ensure the delightful service they should offer to remain competitive.But before even to start thinking about putting in place Predictive Analytics in our Hospitality company, there are three essential things related to the data we need to address:
Having the right data
The Hospitality companies generate a wealth of information about their clients. The report from the Property Management System or the CRM helps them to build a picture of who their buyer persona is. But this is just a small piece of data. Most companies are missing the massive potential of the data they can gather from their booking sources (and especially their main website) to have a clearer picture of demand. This data will tell them who looked at their hotel and when, who booked, and who decided to go elsewhere. The information on the people that didn't book is as relevant as the information of those that booked. That gives a complete picture to the Hotel. Now, technology advancements and easy-to-use solutions as Datumize Real Demand, allow Hospitality executives to enjoy compelling and actionable insights generated thanks to the leverage of the hidden data in decision making.
Consolidating data
As in many other industries, overcoming silos is one of the main challenges to face if Hospitality industry wants to implement Predictive Analytics. Analytics can only achieve those new levels when diverse sets of data are gathered in one place: the famous data-lake.
Using new data sources
For useful predictive analytics we need to bring together all these data we’ve gathered from traditional data sources such as the PMS, CRM, booking sources, website, etc. and combine it with other applicable data sources. Specially Social Media and Review platforms (TripAdvisor) represent a fruitful source of sentimental and qualitative data, that can help the Hotel or Hospitality company to understand what the market is saying about them or the competitors.
Customer experience had become the new competitive advantage for Hospitality Industry and is becoming the motor for this crescent effort to gain better customer understanding. Data are at the foundation of any Predictive Analytics strategy, so for many companies, the three must-done steps explained above are becoming a priority.
At Datumize, we are helping many Hospitality companies to leverage their hidden data in decision making, gathering all the booking data from their different channels so that they can have a perfect understanding of their customer booking behavior and journey, and obtain a full picture of their demand.
Do you want to know more about it? Contact us!
