Briefing: Appreciating data skill

Research from Tableau Software has revealed that just 40% of recent graduates believe data analytics skills are essential for their future job and only 30% believe data analytics to be critical in fulfilling their career goals. In every aspect of hospitality, workers need to appreciate the importance of data, although not everyone needs to be able to analyse it. Some will collect the data, and others will be using the insight it provides in their work.

Our experts discuss how understanding data can have a positive impact on business:

Organisations are continuing to invest in data, whether this means bringing in new skilled staff or creating partnerships with data specialist companies.

So what are some of the problems that arise when working with data?  According to a study by Xplenty, Over 30% of Business Intelligence Professionals say they spend 50% – 90% of their time cleaning raw data. Other challenges mentioned include, integrating data from different platforms and managing the sheer volume of incoming data at any given time.

The amount of data available for people to work with is only increasing, and this could mean great things for business. A report by Forbes, Data Elevates the Customer Experience, found that the growth of customer experience data increasing at rate of more than 25% a year.

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Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: The measured approach to decision making

According to a report by CIMA; ‘72% of organisations admit to at least one strategic initiative failing in the last three years as a result of flaws in their decision making process.’

It is said that we make 35,000 decisions a day. In a fast evolving business day, we need to have enough confidence in our information and processes to make decisions quickly. In the longer term, important strategic changes need to be considered and implemented carefully, as our experts discuss in these videos:

Our industry is changing fast, in hospitality, time sensitive data can now be used to update strategies on the fly. But investing in the technology to do this is in and of itself a big decision to make and even a good idea can be badly actioned.

The report ‘Joining the dots: decision making for a new era’ from CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) surveyed board-level executives at large organisations. In the survey, 80% of respondents said flawed information has been used to make strategic decisions.

Technology and data, when set up carefully, can be the competitive advantage that makes a significant difference to your business. With so much data coming through it is important it is systemized and ordered well but 36% of executives say their organisation is not coping with information overload. There is debate over how useful ‘big data’ is, with 37% saying it has helped and 32% saying it has made things worse.

Another factor in good decision making, identified by the report, is communication. 43% said their level of trust in fellow executives needed improvement and 57% said more active collaboration was required.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Ctrip and OTAs globally

In January Ctrip invested US$180m in MakeMyTrip Limited, India’s largest online travel company and also entered the UK market by buying a majority stake in Travelfusion, a UK-based meta-search website.

The words OTA and disruption have almost become synonymous in the hospitality industry. Ctrip is a major OTA in China and is now making an impact across the globe. Ctrip’s pricing methods are also relevant to rate parity discussions across the industry.

In these videos experts discuss Ctrip and the OTAs’ disruptive potential across the globe.

Constant deals and consolidation in the OTA market means that the powerful are getting more powerful, and as discussed above rate parity is not yet an issue the industry has put to bed.

Ctrip was launched in 1999. It’s net revenue for 2015 was US$1.7 bn. Accommodation reservation revenues increased 44% year-on-year, reaching US$713 m, and transportation ticketing revenues increased 51% year-on-year, reaching US$688m.

Ctrip’s agreement with MakemyTrip means that it “may beneficially own up to 26.6% of MakeMyTrip’s outstanding shares. Upon completion of the investment, Ctrip will acquire the right to appoint a director to the MakeMyTrip board of directors.”

Ctrip claim that its relationship with Travel fusion will “enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of [Ctrip’s] IT system by leveraging Travelfusion’s advanced technology” as well as “further extending [Ctrip’s] leadership in China’s international travel market”

Last Year Ctrip also acquired a stake costing $400m in eLong, its rival OTA in China.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

Briefing: Smart data adds value

RevPar in the UK hotel industry is growing. According to PWC’s UK hotels forecast 2016, there will be 2.2% growth in ADR in London in 2016, which will help drive a RevPAR increase of 2.3% and take yields to £122.

But hoteliers should not become complacent because of market positivity. Could hotel revenues be increased further with better use of data? Clever businesses are now valuing ‘Smart Data’ – data which is analysed and acted on, over ‘Big Data’, and want any data use to make a difference to the bottom line.

Hospitality experts discuss reacting to data insights:

Good data usage can really help push the revenue of hotels by giving hotels the insight into what’s working, what isn’t, and what they should do to capitalize their assets. Customer data can tell hoteliers how to improve their hotel, and outside data such as weather can tell hotels how to change their prices.

Weather is a particularly rich area of data. According to a report by BSA, “Satellites, weather observatories, radar, and other sensors capture more than 2.25 billion weather data points 15 times per hour — collecting 20 terabytes per day — making more accurate weather predictions around the globe possible.” And this is of course very easily applicable to hotels as weather can be a massive influencer on guest behaviour.

2011 research by Erik Brynjolfsson, Lorin Hitt and Heekyung Kim found that companies that used data to drive decision making saw overall productivity improve by 5-6%

A 2014 survey by Forrester found that companies were analysing only 12% of the data that they already have. There is an unknowable amount of data out there, much of it unstructured and most of it still unused, but this is slowly changing.

If you’ve been sent to this page and you’re not yet on the circulation list to receive these regular briefings and you would like to sign up, you can do see here. It’s free.

Video clips produced by ybc.tv for the Hospitality Channel, including interview from industry conferences such as the IHIF conference as well as specific Hospitality Channel shoots.

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