How Big Data Analytics Is Reforming the Travel Industry

Big Data and analytics are primarily reforming all aspects of the travel industry, and companies that do not adapt will be lagging behind in the data-led industry. Big Data Analytics is improving the customer experience, increasing business efficiency and revenue management in travel industry.

The travel industry generates and operates on vast quantities of data around reservations, inquiries, itineraries, hotel bookings, rental cars, trains, airlines, fare charts, customer feedbacks etc., thereby leaving long trails of data. Travel is overflowing with data and companies are increasing their dollar spend to get to the insight this provides to them, according to Eye for Travel’s new industry-wide State of Data and Analytics in Travel Report 2017.

According to the report, 74.5 percent participants anticipate a budget increase for data and analytics in 2017. More than 50 percent of the sample suggests a budget increase to the tune of 6 percent or more and 30 percent expect it to increase by 11 percent or more. Participants were most optimistic about budget increases in Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe and then finally North America. This geographic split is governed by how participants view the coming year for the travel and tourism industry as a whole. In both Asia-Pacific and Europe 16.3 percent of sample size is neutral or negative about growth prospects for this year vis-à-vis to 23.3 per cent of respondents from North America.

The travel and tourism industry has realized the importance of data analysis and is steering into a comfortable position to further exploit it to their benefit. The travel industry is catching up fast with other industries in terms of analytics and data deployment. These planned budgetary increases will help get the maximum value out of the huge amount of data that already exists in silos and more that will be generated in the future, by employing analytic techniques that can help get useful insights from it.

Below are some of the enhancements that travel intelligence, via Big Data Analytics, can bring in the two areas – customer experience and business efficiency improvement.

Personalized customer experience – Availability of personal data from social media platforms and Big Data Analytics help in making travel more responsive and focused on the traveler’s needs as well as preferences. Better-targeted services bring in better customer relationships or more loyal customers and eventually better revenues
Personalized customer experience – Availability of personal data from social media platforms and Big Data Analytics help in making travel more responsive and focused on the traveler’s needs as well as preferences. Better-targeted services bring in better customer relationships or more loyal customers and eventually better revenues
Superior pricing strategy – Big Data Analytics is effectively replacing traditional manual fare analysis with smart automation by gathering, indexing, filtering and analyzing existing and real-time data from multiple sources. Dynamic analysis of competitors pricing will help travel companies in creating a better pricing strategy for travel. Big Data Analytics allows travel sites to forecast price change over time, for better serving their consumer needs.
Customer analytics and betterment of services – Studying customer buying patterns, objections, and feedbacks by analyzing data collected from online forums, social media platforms, front desk, call center conversations, etc. will help to identify customer intent and to assist in designing a business strategy.
Marketing and sales optimization – Big Data Analytics is increasingly being used to optimize marketing efforts on targeted travelers by customizing the offers based on their requirements. Analyzing vast quantity of unstructured data, service providers will gain valuable insights that will enable them to deliver targeted offers at the right time, place and through the right channel. Service providers can also track their customers and make location relevant real-time offers by enabling GPS technology with data analytics.

It is evident that Big Data has the potential to revolutionize the travel industry. A sound Big Data Analytic strategy is becoming indispensable to ascertain 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 defies like lack of data scientists, affordable infrastructure, and deployment costs. However, considering the current pace of the digital revolution, it is evident that the early adopters will have surely have an upper edge!

Sudhir is a writer, who write various topic of Revenue Management in Travel Industry and Pricing Strategy for Travel Industry.