Why is it that the OTAs are beating the hotels at their own game and enticing so many guests away from direct bookings? A primary reason is a failure on the part of hotels to access and leverage Big Data in ways that would give them a competitive edge. And the cause of this failure is simple: most hotel IT stacks are built and configured in a manner that makes it impossible to collect and profit from Big Data effectively.
The perennial problem with the average hotel tech stack is lack of connectivity and centralization. Guest data is collected and stored individually by the many systems within the stack. The inevitable result is the existence of multiple guest profiles sitting in isolated silos – meaning the data cannot be centralized, cleansed and used to create valuable insights for marketing and customer service purposes.
Hotels have as many as 30 profiles for the same guest stored across disconnected systems that cannot ‘talk’ to each other. The result is a ‘Frankenstein’ IT stack, this has serious data privacy compliance implications for the hotel as well as precluding the creation of personalized communications, special offers and onsite services. In other words, they are stuck in a digital rut and cannot get out.
The irony of the situation is that hotels are actually much better-placed to collect data about their guests than the OTAs. With the customer physically there on the premises, a hotel can find out all manner of details about the guest’s likes, dislikes and preferences – data that may never be available to the OTAs.
There is a massive opportunity here to collect all these pieces of data, bring them together and, over time, transform them into a complete picture of each guest. But without the existence of a single, clean guest profile – also known as the Golden Record – this simply cannot be done with PMS as the key element of an IT-stack.
Hotels need to bring their IT stacks into the 21st century. That means harnessing the joint powers of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation to give guests the personalized services and experiences they crave, whilst improving and streamlining operational, marketing and reporting processes. The key to all this is, of course, Big Data – and the only way to achieve it is through an IT solution centered on Central Data Management (CDM) supported by Data Quality Management (DQM).
To put it another way, it is time to move the center of the tech stack away from the PMS, CRM, CRS, IBE or whatever platform might be its focal point right now. Only by implementing a modern CDM system, along with a robust DQM like the dailypoint Data LaundryTM, can the Golden Record for each guest be created, cleansed, maintained and ultimately used to produce the insights needed for personalization at each stage of the customer journey.
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