Business Intelligence has slowly infiltrated many sectors in the modern world, from helping small business owners scale growth to conglomerates predicting trends. BI has become a critical tool for management in guiding decision making. The hospitality sector too isn’t left out. You may wonder how much data does the hospitality industry generate. The amount is more than what you think.
Marriot and international Hotel chain had a security breach and data of over 500 million customers were stolen. The Data included name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, and Starwood Preferred Guest (“SPG”) account information. Date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preference were also in the breach. This puts in perspective just how much data the hospitality industry has about its numerous clients.
These data being collected allows them juxtapose historical data, current data and predictive analysis. This gives an unrestrained and a broader perspective of all their business data. Whether it is to learn from the past or to plan for the future, you need this kind of an approach for your hotel to run efficiently. Hospitality business Intelligence tools also allow you to compare various metrics, across any timeline. This is crucial for hotel management to understand if or not their strategy is efficient. While giving them the option to intervene at the right time to avoid glitches in the future. Think about occupancy rates, pricing strategy or even the volume of reservation coming in from a certain source- you get to have an informed opinion on all these factors which contribute to the success or failure of your business and work accordingly.
Hotels gets bookings from multiple sources- Website, Walk-ins, OTAs, GDS, Local Travel Agents, etc. And you want to find out which of these is the most lucrative option for your hotel over a certain period of time. These can allow management introduce the right marketing mix and, channel to maximize growth. This will sustain clientele while simultaneously reducing operational cost.
Hotels that want to scale, and scale quickly use both PMS and BI to help management see trends early enough and adjust strategically to maximize its growth potential.