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.

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: In the Clouds – Changing IT systems in hospitality

The latest data from Cisco suggests that by 2019, more than four-fifths (86%) of workloads will be processed by cloud data centres and only 14% will be processed by traditional data centres. Cloud has been a game changer in all businesses, but in hospitality there has also been widespread upgrading of PMS and the introduction of customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

In these videos our experts discuss how the right technology systems can really make a difference:

Cisco’s statistics show that global cloud IP traffic will more than quadruple (4.1-fold) over the next 5 years. In the digital economy data use is rising fast. Cisco report that the workload for cloud data centres are already higher than traditional data centres, and this is increasing. Cisco say that “the workload density (that is, workloads per physical server) for cloud data centres was 5.1 in 2014 and will grow to 8.4 by 2019.”

A separate report by Fruition Partners suggests that switching to the cloud requires careful management. It revealed a fear in “85% of CIOs in the UK and US that cloud is reducing their organisations’ control over IT.” Using cloud systems and teaming up with technology partners with specific expertise is worthwhile part of modern business, but as with any change it should be carefully thought through to ensure it gets maximum results.

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.

Briefing: Digital support, OTAs, and the Billboard Effect

The latest report from TravelClick has found that so far in 2016 brand websites have had the largest share of rooms sold (34.7%) of all booking channels in North America. OTAs have had 14.9% of the share. Both segments grew in the last quarter of 2015, brand channels grew 4.3% and OTAs grew 3.8%.

Online booking continues to dominate distribution and despite recent discussions in the industry questioning the continued relevance of the ‘Billboard Effect’, relationships between smaller hotel companies and the OTAs remain important.

These videos discuss the importance of online channels and what OTAs can offer:

The Billboard Effect was made famous in 2009 when Chris K. Anderson of Cornell University published the research report ‘The Billboard Effect: Online Travel Agent Impact on Non-OTA Reservation Volume.’

The reported look closely at four hotels (three branded, one independent) and noted changes in the Average Daily Reservations on their own websites as their visibility on Expedia.com was switched on and off over a three month period. All four hotels saw an increase in direct reservations when displayed on the OTA. The highest difference was found with the independent hotel which had a direct reservation increase of 26% when visible on Expedia. The lowest difference was a 7.5% increase.

However, as reported on tnooz, research is now suggesting that customers who look on OTAs are more likely to ultimately book on the OTA site regardless of where they start their booking journey.

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: Industry unclear on customer acquisition costs

According to Kalibri Labs customer acquisition cost is now upwards of 15%-25% of room revenue.

The shift from direct booking to multi-channel booking means that cost of acquisition has become more of a cloudy issue in hospitality. Businesses must now take into account; fees, commissions, marketing cost, revenue, and effectiveness of each channel.

So which channels overall are more cost effective? Our experts discuss:

The issue of Rate Parity has been contentious between hotels and OTAs. Any difference in the rate offered on each channel certainly affects the overall cost of customer acquisition. Any new channel, be it an OTA, Metasearch site or new entrant that a hotel or alternative accommodation decides to display rooms on, adds new factors and makes cost harder to keep track of. Not forgetting the bookings that still come in through non digital channels.

According to Travel Click, the Average Daily Rate from customer booking directly with a property either in person or over the phone is growing 5.6% in Q1 2016. In Q1, ADR is also growing 4.0% for CRO (phone calls to a brand), 3.3% for OTA, 3% for GDS (in-person travel agents) and 2.3% percent for ‘Brand.com’ (a company’s website).

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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