On Day One of the Atlanta Summit last week, senior executives from Wyndham, Kimpton, Tauck, Delta Airlines and more, identified numerous ways to put data into action
Travel companies, big and small, are using data to attract more guests to their brands and drive additional revenue. But how do you put that data into action across your marketing and business strategies? That was the theme of Day One at EyeforTravel’s Smart Travel Data Summit North America, held in Atlanta last week.
As technology advances, bigger and better data is becoming available to the travel industry. Each business is on a journey to create new systems and adopt best practices. This has become crucial in an age where customers crave the best experiences.
As several experts shared at the Summit, hospitality companies must know their guests and personalise their experience to survive. Or, somebody else will.
“Things have changed dramatically in the last two or three years,” PJ Abhishek, Senior Vice President of Revenue Management and Consumer Analytics for RCI/Wyndham Worldwide told the audience. “We are definitely in a very critical part of the journey.”
One of the biggest challenges to fully realising the power of data is that many organisations operate in silos, or with little collaboration.
Revenue managers and analysts need to break down barriers and start partnering with all departments, from sales to marketing and operations.
3 high level strategies
Kelly McGuire, vice president of advanced analytics for Wyndham Worldwide, offered three high-level strategies to put data into action.
- Develop a guiding philosophy for analytics and what it will accomplish
“Without good communication, your analytic strategy falls flat,” McGuire said. To address this, she suggests developing data that’s not just reactive, or measuring the past, but predictive, allowing a company to evolve and survive in the future. “As you become better at this, it enables a different kind of decision making in the organisation,” McGuire said.
