Top Benefits of Big Data in Tourism Industry

Author: Eycan Yagmur Aras

 

Big data is a technology used to systematically process, analyze, and report and visualize large collections of data.

This large amount of data is often larger than TB or even PB (petabytes) and is almost impossible to manually debug. Traditional methods do not work for these data, which are very high in volume and diversity.

Such data can come in internal and external forms and is often related to customer experience, habits, opinions and behaviors.

Any business can collect and process this type of data, but its use in the travel industry is very common. It can be a very useful tool for tourism companies in terms of having predictive and behavioral insight about the customer.

 

Big data continues to push the travel industry forward. Thanks to big data, the analysis and analytics of the collected and extracted data has become easier. This has made the tourism industry more efficient.

 

An online tourism business is in a position to offer everything to the traveler with big data. It meets the traveler's expectations with personalized offers, recommendations of places to visit and many more.

 

The information that can be easily analyzed thanks to big data in the tourism industry:

 

•        Destination information - Attractions, famous spots, rules, regulations
•  ·    Hotel and Restaurant data - reviews and ratings, price information, services offered
•  ·    Travel information - tickets, pricing, itinerary, maps, traffic situation
•        Events schedule - festivals, events, sports
•        Tourist data - number of inbound and outbound tourists, demographics, languages
•        Social data - traveler's social media posts, hashtags used, geographic and brand tags
•        Different data - website searches, visit analytics, passport-visa application data, education and employment

 

Different Benefits of Using Big Data for Tourism Industry

 

1. Revenue Management

The tourism industry must sell the right service to the customer at the right time. To do this, it needs data analysis.

Internal data provides insight into past customer experiences, expectations, revenue, room rates and occupancy, and reservations.

External data gives information about events, flight, weather, traffic, holidays. In this way, it helps to analyze future customer expectations in advance. This also helps to increase productivity and profit.

Big data basically serves to simplify and clear data complexity and pricing.

 

Revenue management makes it clear which features are really important and relevant to aspiring customers. In this way, action is taken. In addition, the competition rate can be determined and the next moves of the enterprises can be analyzed.

 

2. Strategic Marketing

Using big data data, tourism companies take important steps in their marketing strategies. They can present the actual figures and prices to the customers, so that the customers can easily access the information they want whenever they want.

In this way, companies target the right audience at the right time.

They both make profit more easily and thanks to target marketing, the content is delivered to the desired targets quickly.

 

3. Customer Experience

Tourism establishments are in constant interaction with customers and thus collect a lot of information to improve the customer experience.

Big data, on the other hand, provides this information with conscious data on which services companies should continue to provide, which technologies they should invest in, and which services they should stay away from.

 

4. Reputation Management

 

Thanks to big data, billing and payment systems became much easier and started to work smoothly. This increases the profits of the companies by causing the customers to spend more.

 

5. Market Research

 

Thanks to big data, companies have the opportunity to better analyze their main competitors and evaluate themselves.

They get an idea of ​​what other businesses are offering and what opportunities they are providing to the customer. Because big data can analyze customer opinions, comments and ratings from online channels. In this way, the strengths or weaknesses of other companies or competitors are determined and companies take action accordingly.

 

In this way, businesses identify potential gaps in the market and use them to gain an edge in the market.

 

6. Targeted Marketing

 

Obviously, every customer is different. Companies analyze the data they receive with big data and offer them payment methods, location preferences, different destinations and different offers according to the differences of each customer. This helps in gaining loyalty from customers.

 

The big data challenges facing the tourism industry:

 

Cyber ​​Security and Data Privacy:

 

Big data has made it much easier for businesses in the tourism industry to extract data, but it also has problems.

Since there is a lot of trust in big data in tourism, the risk of data breach is also high. In such a case, trust and brands are at risk. This situation is a major source of stress in the tourism industry.

 

Unstructured Data:

With big data, it is easy for companies to collect and analyze data. Unfortunately, the internet is full of dirty and unstructured data that is difficult to analyze. This poses a challenge for companies.

 

Big Data and the Future of the Tourism Industry

In a place where travelers go for the first time, instantly created plans and programs prepared according to one's budget, tastes and time of where to go will soon become widespread.

Even the person's mood will be evaluated.

 

Tourism companies will have access to where people spend their money, where they stay for how long, where they enjoy and what they are satisfied with. In this way, businesses will analyze which product or service they can market to whom.

 

All of these will be turned into an advantage by tourism businesses and their owners, and revolutionary developments are expected.

 

Summary

Big data has made a huge breakthrough in terms of technology. It has worked for each sector and has increased its profit rates quickly and effectively. In the travel sector, the benefits and opportunities offered to companies have made the operation of the business much easier. It is very important for companies to read the analyzed data and identify risks and opportunities in advance. In the future, the tourism industry seems to make more progress thanks to big data.

 

Lexicon: 

Big Data, Customer Experience, Tourism Industry, Structured Data, Benefits of Big Data 

References

1. Revfine.com (2019). 5 Ways Big Data Can Benefit the Travel Industry. [online] Revfine.com. Available at: https://www.revfine.com/big-data-travel-industry/.
2. Says, T. (2019). Big Data in Travel Industry - How technology is revolutionising Tourism Sector. [online] DataFlair. Available at: https://data-flair.training/blogs/big-data-in-travel-industry/# [Accessed 13 Mar. 2022].
3. Gorini, M. (n.d.). How Big Data Technologies Can Improve Tourism. [online] blog.bismart.com. Available at: https://blog.bismart.com/en/big-data-technologies-tourism.
4. TechVidvan. (2021). Benefits of Big Data in Travel Industry (Case Studies Included). [online] Available at: https://techvidvan.com/tutorials/big-data-in-travel-tourism-industry/ [Accessed 13 Mar. 2022].
5. Octoparse (2021). What Is Big Data in Tourism? [online] DataSeries. Available at: https://medium.com/dataseries/what-is-big-data-in-tourism-86b9910cc818.
   
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