Hospitality sector is constantly seeking to improve the customer experience and optimize hotel management. Fortunately, the development of new technologies is helping to meet these challenges at an accelerated pace. Specifically, Big Data is one of the most demanded tools for such a task.
Big Data is, as its name suggests, a large amount of data and information that can be useful to make the best decisions regarding our business to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. If you want to know how the data analytics in the hotel industry can help you in day-to-day management, keep reading!
Big Data in hotels: Main benefits
Big Data is very useful for certain companies because it provides answers to questions that hotels did not even know they had. It gives them a lot of benchmarks to work on and improve. It provides a huge amount of data that allows to identify and solve problems or find new opportunities.
Customer experience
Guests leave, during their stay, an immense amount of data and very useful information such as:
- Their place of origin.
- Their booking method (online, agency, telephone…).
- The dates of the stay.
- The services they have ordered.
- The type of room.
- Their age range.
All this data allows us to recognize patterns, identify our potential client and create a very precise profile. This is very valuable information for hotels, since they can personalize their offer, adapting it to that potential client in order to improve their experience.
We can get to this data through service usage data, feedback on social media, reviews posted on the internet…
Segmentation
Thanks to the information provided by Big Data, we can segment more in-depth our offer. From business trips, family vacations, low-cost trips to even honeymoons. The typology of travel is extensive, so data analytics in the hotel industry can be helpful to be much more precise in our services and marketing campaigns.
For instance, if our potential client has a seasonal focus, you will know when to offer the services that that match to this time of the year.
Anticipation of demand
Another way that big data can be of great use within the hospitality industry is the anticipation of demand. Reservation data provides valuable information about the behavior of our guests, especially in terms of how far in advance they book.
With this information provided by Big Data, you will be able to anticipate to the most demanded months and promote your establishment in times with low reservation quotas (for example, by offering discounts).
Some data that may be interesting for this analytical approach are:
- Occupancy rates according to the season
- Vacation periods, school vacations
- Public holidays
Facilitates decision-making
Hospitality industry seeks constant evolution to adapt to the needs and preferences of the customers. Guest ratings help you identify the services that are most requested or enjoyed, and those that need to be improved.
This can help you in more relevant decisions such as remodeling the establishment, staff changes, variation of the business line or of the direction of your advertising campaigns.
Analysis of the competitors
Finally, Big Data can be a very powerful tool to study our competitors and see what other hotels are doing. This is very easy thanks to the internet today, social networks, blogs and customers valorations on the web. This information can be collected and analyzed to identify possible trends.
Both positive and negative reviews can be used to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. In this way, you will be able to identify which elements and behaviors to ‘imitate’ and which to reinforce.
In short, Big data is an essential tool for hotel management today. It can be very beneficial and help in many ways, but it also means that more and more companies have access to a huge amount of data, so the competition is now more aggressive.
Therefore, having the right software is essential to have all the possible tools. Goguest technology allows to analyze and to respond quickly to the needs of your guests, making them loyal, controlling all aspects of your business and responding quickly to any situation that requires it.
