Big data in hospitality sector is utilizing technology to streamline customer experience

Ever been on a tour and felt that everything is happening your way, starting from the appearance of the room to the travel arrangements? If so, you have been one of those lucky people who have already experienced the sophistication of big data in hospitality industry. Businesses around the world are already waking up to the importance of big data analytics. Getting the right insights gives you an advantage in a competitive business environment, and hospitality industry is no different from it. Big data in hospitality sector is utilizing technology to streamline the customer experience.

The term big data was coined in 1990. But the technology got its recognition only when social media platforms like Facebook arrived on the scene in 2005. With people generating infinite amount of data every day, big data applications are invading everything from product management to fraud detection. Big data defines the collection of information from both online and offline sources to support the ongoing development and operations of a company or an organization. In hospitality industry, big data solutions are mostly associated with customer behavior and interactions. Hotels and other facilities functioning under the hospitality industry fence are getting a grip with the concept of big data analytics to increase its performance and revenue.

From a broad perspective, travel and hospitality firms are the accelerators of mood. They blow up people with extraordinary content to make them joyful during their trips. A hotel’s performance highly depends on how well they help people carry precious movements. Customers too expect a lot from the companies. They want hospitality industry to do more than cater to their needs, they look forward to their needs being anticipated. Big data is one way to unlock a better, more tailored experience. Hotels use big data analytics to optimally price and manage their customers. Big data applications also help hoteliers to tune in to customers’ wants and deliver them with the right content. Henceforth, let’s look at some of the applications of big data in hospitality industry.

Hotel revenue management 

Anticipating the needs of consumers is very important in hospitality industry. Especially, mandatory things like the number of rooms needed should always be taken into account to boost the hotel performance. Fortunately, hospitality industry is gaining insight by utilizing the available big data and collecting more data from online platforms and third parties. Big data content like the information on occupancy rates, current bookings, key performance metrics, school holidays, local events, etc will contribute to better hotel performance. They carry out big data analytics to more accurately anticipate the level of demands. This will directly impact the hotels revenue management strategy.

Personalized marketing and advertising

Marketing and advertising sector is one of the loyal users of big data solutions, almost in all industries. They place data at the center of their strategies and use it to improve efficiency, reduce wasted ad spending and create a more engaging advertising experience for consumers. It is no different in hospitality industry. Big data leverages a more detailed understanding of guest performances, the way they book, and other vital metrics. Big data analytics provide the marketing team with a special focus to concentrate on a detailed understanding of customers’ behavior. This allows marketers to create a more specific segment of ads that focuses on a particular or a group of people.

Addresses the internal pain points

Hospitality industry is also a hub of confusion and chaos at times. Everything doesn’t go well always. Restaurants might sometimes find themselves in the void of fewer sales and rational customers. However, there could always be a reason behind the sudden plummet in the routine. Fortunately, big data can help restaurants find where they lack behind. With the help of big data applications restaurants can perform analysis and see which item has made the void and ask the chef to redo it. Besides, big data collected from hospitality industry can be used for the front-of-house operations as well.

How to bring big data into the hotel’s culture?

Even though big data plays a massive role in enriching the performance of hospitality industry, not all data are considered valuable. Driving the right data will enhance business profit. However, to begin with, implying big data applications in the hospitality industry, the organizations should initially be open to fund the motive. Moving forward, they should train the employees to embrace big data analytics in every decision they make.

For example, Marriott International is one of the greatest facilitators of big data solutions. The company uses data to track competitors’ brands and hotels, identify new revenue streams outside of rooms such as new facilities and services, and make sure they are satisfying both guests and people in the local community. Marriott especially utilizes big data to enhance revenue management and customer satisfaction.

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Intelligent support in real time: Porsche is equipping its Car Configurator with a new advisory function that draws on artificial intelligence.

A new function has been added to the Porsche Car Configurator, to offer individuals specially tailored suggestions as to how they might configure their vehicle. ‘Recommendation Engine’ uses artificial intelligence to determine unique and suitable options from billions of possible combinations – all within a fraction of a second.

The new tool is based on several million data points from the Car Configurator. To implement it, more than 270 machine learning models were trained for specific markets and derivatives. Known as neural networks, they use algorithms to find patterns in the data, making it possible to predict options to provide the greatest possible benefit for each individual customer, based on their own choices. Tests have shown the recommendations are more than 90 per cent accurate and, because the Recommendation Engine is self-optimising based on new data, the rate will improve further over time.

“By using artificial intelligence in the Porsche Car Configurator, we’re making the configuration process easier for our customers,” says Axel Berger, Project Manager in the Advanced Analytics and Smart Data department at Porsche. “We’re using this technology to create a truly personalised online experience where we display relevant equipment options. No two users will receive the same recommendations.” Porsche has taken particular care to ensure data protection and anonymity, so users’ privacy remains protected at all times.

The tool is currently available to customers in six sales markets: Germany, China, the US, Great Britain, Switzerland and Taiwan; and others will follow. Users can access the virtual consultation via the Recommendation Engine by clicking on a light bulb icon at the bottom of the page. As part of its digitalisation strategy, Porsche is using AI in a way that is clearly geared towards customer benefit, pursuing the goal of inspiring customers by extending its unique product and brand experience to the online sphere.

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