October 01, 2014
Data Application
Samuel Ayisi
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samuel.ayisi@nyansapor.com
Using data generated by hotel technology solutions to improve your analytics
As I browsed the various hotel technology solutions on display during HITEC 2014 in Los Angeles, I realized that most of these solutions generate some form of valuable data that can be digitally captured, stored and analyzed in one way or another. As an analytics person, this kept me thinking about how hotels can make use of the data generated and the immense value it could add to their analytics.
Imagine being able to combine data generated by the guest entertainment system with hotel transactional data and analyzing the resulting data set to help make better decisions on improving the total guest experience.
Have you ever thought about the potential value of the data generated by your various technology solutions? What about the cost of missed opportunities because you ignored this data? Did you know that this data could be provided to you at no additional cost? It would be worth your while to start having discussions with your technology solutions providers to find out what data (and perhaps analytics) is available to you. You might be surprised to find out that all you had to do was ask.
I’m not implying that you embark on a data gathering spree just for the heck of it, because not all the data generated by your technology solutions would be useful to you. A careful review will enable you to identify data sets that can deliver truly valuable information to support the inferences you make about what your guests really want.
Most of your technology solutions providers offer various reports that they believe will be of value to you. You could either use these standard reports for your analytics or request to have the unformatted data pushed into your internal data repository, pulled directly by your analytics tool or delivered via your preferred method. Either way, it would be prudent to scrutinize the data provided, and gradually refine your requirements to ensure that your analytics needs are met. By opting to have the unformatted data within your analytics environment, you can now easily perform numerous insightful analytics based on a combination of all your data sets.
However, gathering an ocean of valuable data and/or implementing the most sophisticated analytics software will not improve anything if your strategic vision does not encourage an analytics mindset at all decision-making levels. The analytics mindset of your decision makers plays a key role in how valuable insight is extracted from all available data sources and the resulting insight used as guidance in the decisions they make.
A great deal of valuable data that is being generated by various technology solutions. Take some time to evaluate these solutions, identify valuable data sets, and make an effort to incorporate these data sets into your analytics. It might provide that ah-ha moment you’ve been waiting for.
Samuel Ayisi is the head of analytics with Nyanspor Analytics. He can be reached at samuel.ayisi@nyansapor.com.
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What Can Solution Providers Do?
1| Make hotels aware of the availability of such data and analytics.
2| Take the initiative and proactively provide the data to hotels along with some analytics.
3| Help hotels understand the data and how it can add value to their decision-making.
4| Continuously refine the type of data captured based on requests and data utilization.
5| Provide data in standard output formats to enable easy integration with other applications and data repositories.
If data cannot be provided at current price points, consider providing it as an add-on service with various tiers, as the data needs of hotels might differ significantly.
Examples of data generated
Guest Engagement Solutions
Guest-related data: genre of movies watched and for how long, favorite TV channels, apps utilization, service offerings requested (including checkout).
Solution-related data: utilization, system health, bandwidth consumed, service and data disruptions.
Use case examples:
1 Analyzing data generated by the Map app alongside other data sources such as the PMS, marketing and social media, can help you determine, the level of utilization of the app stratified by type of guests (loyalty, business travelers, vacationers etc.), what the app is used for (directions, research etc.), and popular points of interest researched including whether these places were visited and by whom. You can then use this analysis to sell featured space in the app to various places/services of interest (dining, entertainment, shopping, taxi, local attractions, etc.).
2 Utilization data for the entire system can be used to create customized user interfaces for loyalty and frequent guests that include favorite places of interests, TV shows, movies, apps, etc.
Wireless and Internet Services
Internet bandwidth usage by room, time period or type of guest; devices and operating systems used; MAC addresses and number of devices per guest/room; wireless vs. LAN and type of content accessed.
Use case example:
Analyzing Internet bandwidth utilization alongside guest profitability or loyalty programs can help you make strategic decisions on whether high-value guests should have bandwidth priority at all times or during specific periods, and also influence IT infrastructure planning.