Big Data seems to have been the buzzword in most industries for the last five years, but unlike many other industries that have integrated Big Data as a key component of their operations, the hotel industry is lagging very far behind.
In my opinion, this is a big – and costly – mistake to make! You might be asking yourself: “How can my hotel leverage the power of Big Data?”
But before I explain how your property can use Big Data to generate significant increases in occupancy, ADR and RevPAR, let’s go back to the basics…
What is Big Data?
Google defines Big Data as “extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions”.
Wikipedia defines Big Data as: “a broad term for data sets so large or complex that they are difficult to process using traditional data processing applications. Challenges include [the] analysis, capture, curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy[i].”
What does all of that mean?