A certain commodity is emerging as one of the most powerful assets a brand can possess–but are you making the most of this valuable commodity? 

We’re talking about data. One doesn’t have to look far to find headlines that reinforce the idea that in our tech-forward world, data is in the driver’s seat. As The Economist put it, “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.”

This is especially true for hospitality operations, where brands can leverage identity data to deliver high-end and personalized guest experiences and use real-time analytics to inform their marketing strategies, internal operations, and more. 

In a survey of 1,200 companies across six countries, 80% of the organizations that implemented real-time analytics reported an increase in revenue—and an astonishing 98% shared an increase in positive customer sentiments. This is big for brands in the hospitality sphere, where positive guest experiences are everything. 

Discover how to supercharge your data by implementing real-time analytics into your hospitality brand’s operations here.

Why It Matters: The Power of Data Analytics Happening in Real-Time

There’s evidence that industrious individuals have been recording data as far back as 4,000 B.C. when economic records logged transactions for things like livestock and harvests. 

Of course, the way we use and analyze data has transformed a great deal since then, and technologies have led us to the shared understanding that data is most valuable when it’s “fresh,” and data analytics in real-time have only increased the power of what we can do with the data we possess. 

From 2007 to 2014, Delta Airlines used real-time flight information to improve their baggage handling operations. The result was a 71% decrease in lost or mishandled bags–and 71% fewer frustrated customers searching for their luggage.

In hospitality, real-time data analytics refers to using data the instant it enters an enterprise’s system to make informed operational decisions and even predict what next steps will best benefit your brand and its guests. These near-immediate analyses make a great deal of sense within the hospitality sphere for things like personalized guest offerings and improved segmentation for marketing campaigns.

What else can big data and real-time analytics do for those in the hospitality sector? Take hotel brands, for example. Data analytics for hotel companies can use metrics like key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their performance, monitoring things like average daily rates, occupancy rates, revenue available per room, demand, customer satisfaction, and more—all to understand the efficacy of your internal operations, make data-backed predictions about what steps you should take next, and discover how to connect with existing customers and new guests.

This data is collected from a guest’s first touchpoint with the brand (like with a marketing email or social media ad, for example) through the entire hotel experience, including personalization.

Strategies for Making the Most of Big Data in the Hospitality Sector 

Other benefits of real-time data analytics for hospitality companies that your brand may want to implement include:

• Get revenue management support for things like dynamic pricing to balance occupancy, demand, and profits.
• Gain insights into guest behaviors and preferences to provide personalized–and luxury—experiences catered to the needs of each guest, all with less effort.
• Create more targeted marketing campaigns based on guest data to improve conversions and improve your marketing ROI.
• Identify and even anticipate booking trends to offer specialized packages to make the lives of your guests easier and boost customer loyalty.
• Evaluate transactions based on metrics like individual days, customer market segments, transaction touchpoint or location, rewards program usage, revenue per room, and more.
• Monitor performance statistics like customer satisfaction and feedback to make data-backed improvements based on guest perception.
• Forecast future sales trends and anticipate times of high demand to prevent overbooking.
• Improve operational efficiency and adjust staffing and resources to provide exceptional guest experiences during peak and slow seasons. 

With new technologies available, your hospitality brand can collect and analyze the right kind of data to track progress toward your goals and garner actionable insights, both for individual guests and your brand as a whole.

Considerations for Implementing Real-Time Data Analytics

As you begin to integrate real-time analytics into your operations, it may be helpful to know that there are three main data analytics strategies:

Descriptive analytics: 

Examine historical data to analyze past trends and occurrences, creating a deeper understanding as time goes on and you include more and more data. This is useful for things like tracking booking or occupancy data, revenue, and past performance of pricing strategies.

Predictive analytics: 

Use AI and ML to analyze data and forecast upcoming trends and outcomes using historical data. This style of analytics can help predict future demand and adjust booking rates to match demand or even offer guest recommendations based on their customer segment and/or previous purchases and interactions across multiple channels.

Prescriptive analytics: 

Leverage data to make data-driven decisions and recommendations. An example of this would be a hotel using prescriptive analytics to balance demand, guest expectations, and market rates to come up with a strong pricing strategy.

Helpful strategies for implementing real-time analytics in hospitality include:

• Prioritize data quality: Choose an AI and ML-powered analytics solution that ensures the data you’re bringing in for analysis is high-quality, rich, and accurate so you can fully trust the insights. Opt for a solution that locates and resolves errors, discrepancies, and other inaccuracies to protect the integrity of your data—especially guest identity data.
• Incorporate big data enterprise-wide: You’ll be able to make the most of your data analytics if you include all systems, solutions, and departments. Not only will this facilitate the elimination of work silos, but it means you can bring in data from every guest touchpoint and customer interaction for a thorough (and accurate) picture of your operations.
• Conduct routine check-ins to evaluate your strategies: Are your KPIs working for you? Are you omitting an important channel for guest interactions in your analyses? Have technologies or consumer behaviors shifted? Choose a data analytics tool that provides an at-a-glance look at your metrics in real time, and schedule opportunities to evaluate how these analytics are working for you–and how they might inform your operations.
• Don’t forget storage and security: Especially when it comes to hospitality, where you’re handling large volumes of identity data and personally identifiable information, select an analytics platform that scales to meet your evolving data needs and is designed to identify and isolate any potential sources of risk.
• Choose a platform with simple integration: You don’t want to wait days or weeks to start understanding your data—and you also don’t want to spend extensive time building connections to integrate your analytics platform with your existing tech stack. Seek out a solution that makes integration fast, secure, and easy, with lots of built-in connectors so you can start benefitting from real-time data analytics right away.

harpin AI: Powerful Identity Data Analytics Designed with Hospitality in Mind

At harpin AI, we know firsthand the power that identity data can have in the hospitality industry–especially when it comes to creating exceptional guest experiences, understanding trends, and managing revenue. 

Our proprietary AI/ML tools, algorithms, and a team of data quality experts pre-process your data in real-time, resulting in more accurate, accessible, and actionable entity data—which will directly enable you to personalize and improve your customer experience, eliminate call center chaos, and increase your ROI with more efficient operations. 

Our platform seamlessly and securely integrates with your existing systems and channels to make the most of the investments and solutions you’ve already come to rely on–so you can make faster, data-driven decisions. harpin AI:

• Provides at-a-glance analytics that include your brand’s entire enterprise and every guest touchpoint for insights you can trust.
• Ensures data quality, alerting you to potential issues and resolving them quickly.
• Comes with over 1,000 pre-built connectors to make integration with your tech stack fast and easy.
• Actively protects your data with robust security measures to protect PII, proprietary information, and your reputation.

100% of our partners see positive results in just three weeks. Ready to see for yourself? Book a demo today.