Hotels
Big Data and Hotels
Though it is one of the biggest buzzwords in technology, big data is a term that is often misunderstood or misused. But when so many different definitions exist, it’s understandable that there’d be some confusion. At the core of it, big data is a large set of data that, through analysis, can reveal trends. When we say large, we mean large. Thousands or millions of data points are common, so this information will almost always come from sources external to your hotel. Good examples of big data are weather, traffic, or social media data. These are giant pools of information that you can sort and filter to find the information relevant to your goals.
Small Data for Hotels
While it doesn’t get mentioned as often as big data, small data is just as valuable. In fact, in the case of hospitality small data is often more valuable to our operational decisions. Small data exists on a more manageable scale, generated by internal resources like your PMS, channel manager, or website. When properly structured (more in the next section), this data becomes actionable information that can make an immediate difference in anything from your ADR to occupancy.
Hotel Analytics
So there’s big and small data and it can be both structured and unstructured. But once we have it, how do we understand it? And how do we use that newly-acquired insight to make better decisions for our hotel? This is where analytics comes in.