As hotel revenue management leaders, we’ve witnessed firsthand the game-changing power of data. Today’s hospitality landscape provides rich data pools, but it takes analytics expertise to transform raw data into revenue-driving insights. If you’re eager to unearth hidden opportunities and compete smarter, hotel data analytics is an essential capability to build.
In this article, we will demystify hotel data analytics so you can leverage it confidently. You’ll learn high-impact data sources, analysis techniques, and strategies for data-driven decision-making.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
What Are Hotel Data Analytics?
Hotel data analytics involves collecting, organising, analysing, and extracting insights from various data sources to drive better hotel decision-making. Some key things to know about hotel data analytics:
- It involves blending data from PMS systems, website analytics, CRM systems, online reviews, social media, and operational metrics. This provides a holistic view of hotel performance and guest behaviour.
- Analytics techniques include descriptive analytics to identify trends, predictive modelling to forecast future outcomes, prescriptive analytics to recommend actions, and sentiment analysis for online review insights.
- The goal is to unlock insights to optimise pricing, personalisation, loyalty programs, ancillary revenues, promotions, guest experiences, and overall strategy.
- Key focus areas for hotels are understanding guest sentiment, preferences, lifetime value, demand forecasts, market dynamics, service gaps, and competitive benchmarking.
- Hotels can leverage data analytics for dynamic pricing, personalised marketing, service innovation, location-based offers, anticipating guest needs, revenue management, and more.
- Effective data analysis requires investments in data infrastructure, analytics tools, data literacy across teams, and sound data governance.
- Skilled data analysts help hotels get the most value from analytics to achieve substantial gains in revenues, guest satisfaction, operational efficiency, and long-term competitiveness.
Hotel data analytics is about continuously improving decision-making across all functions using data-driven insights about guests, operations, and markets. It empowers hotels to provide personalised, relevant, and timely experiences.
Core Hotel Data Sources
The starting point is identifying and accessing valuable hotel data streams. Here are five core data reservoirs to tap into:
1. PMS Data
Your property management system data offers invaluable guest insights - profiles, booking metrics, service interactions, and more.
2. Website Analytics
Your website and booking engine provides visitor patterns, conversions, page interactions, and segment details.
3. Social Media
Online reviews, mentions, engagement, and follower demographics offer guest sentiment and marketing angles.
4. CRM Data
Guest history, preferences, trigger points, and lifecycle data enable personalised marketing.
5. Operational Data
Department-level data on revenue, forecasting, inventory, and performance metrics.
Combine these sources for a 360-degree view of guest behaviour, needs, and market dynamics. PMS, CRM, and booking data are especially crucial foundations.
Analytics Techniques That Deliver
Once data is streaming in, powerful techniques unlock hidden insights:
- Descriptive Analysis: Identifying trends, guest segments, performance metrics, and more
- Predictive Modeling: Forecasting future outcomes and behaviours using machine learning
- Prescriptive Analytics: Suggesting data-driven actions to influence outcomes
- Sentiment Analysis: Extracting insights from online reviews and social data
- Data Visualisation: Transforming data into digestible, insightful graphs and dashboards
Blend techniques like predictive modelling and sentiment analysis to make data actionable. The goal is to improve visibility into guest behaviour continuously.
Strategies To Act On Insights
The real payoff comes from leveraging analytics to guide better decision-making. Here are high-impact ways to act on data insights:
- Dynamic Pricing: Adjust rates based on demand forecasts, competitor moves, and market conditions.
- Personalisation: Deliver tailored offers and experiences matched to guest profiles and needs.
- Loyalty Development: To design data-driven incentives, perks, and communications at each lifecycle stage.
- Ancillary Revenue Optimization: Boost attachment rates and revenue from extras like spa, F&B, and amenities.
- Service Innovation: Identify pain points and evolve service based on guest feedback data.
- Location-Based Promotions: To target nearby guests with hyper-relevant geo-fenced mobile offers.
- The beauty of hotel data analytics lies in continuously refining operations, marketing, and strategy based on genuine guest signals. With an analytics edge, revenue and loyalty gains are just waiting to be uncovered in the data.
Let Data Lead The Way
I hope this guide has shown how harnessing hotel data analytics can transform decision-making and profitability. Once comfortable accessing, analysing, and activating data, you’ll be equipped to compete at a higher level.
To discuss additional ways to build analytics capabilities for your property, connect with Emersion Wellness. Our revenue management experts can assess your current analytics maturity, identify untapped data sources, and recommend techniques to glean intelligence that drives enduring success.
With the right analytics approach, your hotel data will reveal invaluable insights to guide your way to the top. Let us help you unearth the full potential of data-driven decision-making and stay ahead in today’s hospitality landscape.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most essential hotel data sources to leverage?
Top data sources are PMS systems for guest and reservation data, website analytics like clicks and conversions, CRM data on preferences and history, social media for sentiment, and operational metrics by department.
How can predictive modelling help hotels?
Predictive modelling leverages machine learning to forecast guest demand, cancellations, attrition, market movements, and other outcomes. Hotels can then optimise pricing, staffing, promotions, and strategy ahead of time.
What types of insights can be gained from hotel guest sentiment analysis?
Sentiment analysis of online reviews and social data reveals guest satisfaction levels, pain points and service gaps, brand perception, product feedback, and real-time reactions hotels can act on.
How does hotel data analytics enable personalisation?
Guest profiles, history, preferences, trigger points, and other data enable hyper-relevant offers, incentives, and experiences tailored to each guest’s needs and lifecycle stage.
What hotel roles benefit most from leveraging data analytics?
Revenue management, marketing, operations, guest services, and control all gain an edge from analytics insights to optimise decisions. Data democratisation helps all roles.
How can hotels use location-based mobile data?
Opt-in location data helps target nearby guests with personalised, geo-fenced offers and communications when on or near the property. This fuels impulse visits and spending.
What problems can prescriptive analytics help hoteliers solve?
Beyond just identifying trends, prescriptive analytics suggests specific actions to boost outcomes. This allows data-driven improvements to pricing, promotions, amenities, staffing, and more.
How do analytics improve hotel ancillary revenue opportunities?
Hotels can identify service attachment patterns and optimise offers to boost ancillary purchases like spa, recreation, F&B, and upgrades. Targeted cross-sells also help.
What are effective ways for hotels to visualise data?
Tactics like performance dashboards, dynamic reports, graphs, heat maps, journey mapping, and data storytelling make data patterns intuitive and actionable.
How can hotels use web analytics to enhance marketing?
Visitor clicks, site interactions, source traffic, and conversions indicate engagement levels, pain points, and segment interests. Hotels can tailor content, offers, and channels accordingly.
Contact us for more details.
Also see: 10 Easy Tips for Hotel Revenue Managers to Cope With Rate Parity Issues For 2023
I'm Nathan Baws, a nutrition nerd, exercise and weight loss expert, and an unwavering advocate for good health. As the founder of Emersion Wellness, I'm passionate about crafting Seamless Weight Loss Programs to supercharge hotel revenue and transform lives. We've pioneered the World's First Plug & Play Weight Loss Programs for top hotels and resorts, sparking a wellness revolution. Beyond my professional journey, you'll often find me hiking, swimming, and riding the waves, embracing every moment in nature. Join me on this exhilarating journey towards diet, health and wellness.