What is big data and how can you leverage it to make data driven decisions for your hotel?
Put simply, big data is a term used to describe the extremely large amounts of data that come into businesses on a day-to-day basis. The information gathered can come from a wide range of sources: social media, website analytics, your CRM system, and sales analytics just to name a few.
The plus side of having all this data available is, of course, having a resource to inform your business decisions. On the contrary, it’s not good enough to just have data. You need to know how to use it.
Why should you care about hotel data driven decisions?
Data is a fact-based way of understanding your customers and prospects. While feedback and qualitative information are also great, a customer’s data is reliable for understanding what their actual behavior is. Identifying patterns, trends, and using them for insights helps guide your business in the right direction.
If you’re still not sure how you can use data for your hotel, look no further! Here are 5 ways your hotel can make data-driven decisions.
1- Gaining Insights On Your Hotel Sales
The latest hotel and event technology has been developed to show your hotel’s analytics throughout the sales cycle. This is your sales team’s guide to understanding how their work has improved sales and what opportunities there are for improvement.
Reporting analytics typically have a visual component and filters so you can target and narrow down what's most important. There may be some obstacles or bottlenecks along your sales cycle that analytics reports can expose.
For example, maybe you want to improve your team’s results in the email follow-up stage of the sales cycle. You may test out a few different options: setting a staff reminder to follow-up with prospects, changing the contents of the email, or maybe it’s the mode of communication that’s important. You’ll only know if something has worked if you are reporting on it and your data reflects improvement.
2 - Understanding Hotel Revenue
There’s an abundance of ways data can show you how your hotel revenue is being generated. Metrics like occupancy rates, current bookings, leads by referral source can all reveal different ways your hotel is bringing in money.
When you have access to this information, you’re able to forecast and therefore prepare for different levels of demand for your hotel.
This could mean getting ready for a busy season such as during school holidays or large events. Big data can help predict these demands so you can maximize your hotel’s occupancy.
3 - Targeted Marketing
Hotel guests are varied. They have different interests, goals, and reasons for booking.
Big data can help your hotel marketing team plan to target certain segments of your audience through different channels. Having targeted content on social media, emails, and advertising assures that you’re communicating more to the needs of certain segments.
In terms of advertising, take advantage of online advertising data. Targeted ads are now made to be time-specific and location-specific so you can reach the right audience at the right time.
Let’s also talk about website data. The online checkout flow for guests is incremental for maximizing bookings which is why you’ll want to know this data. Connect your website to Google Analytics to see if your guests get stuck somewhere and make appropriate changes.
4 - Optimizing Guest Experiences
The hotel industry is a space where customers aren’t shy about sharing their experiences. This can be a good or bad thing depending on your outlook.
If you’re open to improving and listening to your guests, having their feedback is invaluable data. You can adjust your hotel’s operations based on reviews from social media, your website, or be proactive and have surveys that allow guests to share their experiences at your property.
5 - Knowing Your Competition
There’s a plethora of big data on the internet about your competitors. While it can sometimes be beneficial just to have a general understanding of your competition, consider being more intentional. What exactly do you want to know about your competitors? What are your hotel’s business goals?
If you’re looking to take a deep dive into your hotel’s competition around marketing, you may be interested in their social media, website, and brand messaging.
Insight into your competition's customer experience is also valuable. You can browse review pages and comments to find out more about how you stack up next to your competition.
Once you understand your competition, make sure you turn your insights into actionable items. Insights without action are just insights and don’t help your hotel.
Final Thoughts
Big data is everywhere and your hotel needs to be taking advantage of it. The first step to doing this is knowing what your business goals are. When you know this, you can work towards gathering the right data from the right sources.
Having just data isn’t enough by itself. Draw insights and turn them into action items that align with your business goals. Remember that when it doubt, keep it simple. There’s a lot of data out there so don’t get lost in the details.
Have some thoughts? Leave a comment below on what you think about hotels and big data!
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