Category: English
-
Unlocking Hotel Industry Potential: Data Standards and Open APIs
Picture this: you’re planning a dream vacation, browsing through countless hotel options online. You stumble upon a hotel that seems perfect—great reviews, stunning photos, and an unbeatable price. But wait, how can you be sure that the information you see is accurate and up to date? In the wild world of the accommodation industry, data…
-
AI in Hotel Tech: Much Ado About Nothing
In almost every webinar I’ve attended since last year, and even in a couple of presentations at the recent TechnoHotel Forum in Barcelona, there was always someone bringing up the argument of artificial intelligence in the hotel context. They all used the example of Netflix’s recommendation system as a clear and “applicable” example (how they…
-
Easy ETL with Python: a step by step tutorial
This is a reworked translation from an article written by Francisco Rodriguez Alfaro at Datamanagement.es Introduction These days, Python seems to be the language of choice for anybody working with data, be it Business Intelligence, Data Science, Machine Learning, data integration, etc. Aside from being quite easy to learn and deploy, the main reason for such popularity perhaps lies…
-
-
In the travel industry, intuition beats data
In past articles, I’ve been offering telltales about managers and business owners who systematically ignored whatever data told them. And the grim results that decision (or lack of it) brought to their companies. Their stance was understandable, though, because those episodes refer to a time where “data-driven”, “business intelligence” and “analytics” were largely unknown terms…
-
The three limitations of data profitability
As a business dealing with travelers, unless you have one or two bookings per week -in which case you’re catering for the filthy rich, or about to close shop- you own plenty of data to get a profit from. Everybody assumes by now that’s a fact; if you didn’t so far, you’d better ASAP. “It’s…
-
How to spot a crooked tech vendor
We all heard the horrific stories. Countless resources and time spent on hardware and/or software that pretty soon proved to be crapware… or simply didn’t serve the buyer’s purposes. Sometimes (rarely) it was a miscommunication problem, often it’s just ill-programmed stuff. It may also happen to be a greatly coded product build by clever developers,…
-
Still relying on static reports? You need dashboards, Boss!
I will piss off a few purists here, but if you think you’re performing business intelligence by producing and checking simple text/numbers reports, you’re deluding yourself. It’s a decision system support, no doubt, and it may be data-based. Yet, perusing a bunch of separate and disparate reports to take decisions, is like trying to visualise…
-
BI Travel projects need THIS to be profitable
Large corporations discovered many years ago that outsourcing is a winning bet. A proven fact, magnified when it comes to software development. The IT universe is so vast, that it makes no economical sense to try and develop in-house all the possible solutions needed. Besides, “intrapreneurship” and “innovation” are top buzzwords these days, but the…
-
The two leading causes of tour operators’ deaths
In the past couple of weeks, the industry saw the demise of three well-known travel companies, being Natalie Tours’ the most spectacular. One can’t avoid wandering why this keeps happening so often… As a provider to the Russian operator long ago, I experienced their bully stand, their managers’ parvenu posse, so I’m not shocked by…
-
The 3 reasons why BI saves Travel Companies
I had the pleasure and honor to work alongside Mr. Ioannis Hatziliamis, the legendary founder of Rodos Tours, one of the oldest DMCs of Colossus’s Island. Five minutes conversations with him had more value than a whole academic course, believe me. His was one of the better organized and managed incoming operators I have ever…
-
Using AI to forecast sales and demand
In a previous article about predictive analytics >> that only a couple of close friends read, I stated that such procedure can actually convert data into money. This time, I bring a practical study case to demonstrate that I was not overstating. Well, I shouldn’t be demonstrating anything, as anybody working in airlines and large hotel…
-
Open letter to HR Departments looking for Data roles
Dear Recruiters in the Travel Industry: My very limited experience with corporate employment strategies suggest that whatever request falls down on your desks, it comes from highly paid managers who should know their stuff. Thus, I guess it’s nonsense to expect from you a minimum knowledge about whatever is being thrown in the job ad… Although…
-
Convert predictive analytics into money
In late 1997 I was helping some Egyptian DMC streamline operations, when terrorists stroked at Deir el-Bahri, the heartbreaking Luxor Massacre. About a year later, not one but two hurricanes (Mitch and George) broke havoc in the Caribbean, where I was operating my own DMC. In 2010 half the world’s travel flow was disrupted by…
-
Human obstinacy defeats AI in the Travel arena
Although the term has been lingering in academic and science fiction settings for over 70 years, it seems to me everybody realized two days ago that AI is the new magical panacea that will end profitability issues overnight, replacing “big data” (which now sounds so 2016). As such, everybody and their granny is adding into…
-
Glossary of misused buzzords in the Travel Industry
In Spanish we have a precise term to define a person that uses words without knowing their meaning: “filatico”. It appears there is no translation in English, so I’ll go ahead and coin a new term for this particular kind of poseurs: buzzworder. The following is a short compilation of silly misuses of technical or…
-
Got a booking engine? Probably you’re losing money
Humor me, can’t avoid inserting a story… In early 2011, a wholesale operator requested me to perform an audit on their recently acquired reservations system. They paid top dollar to a prestigious software provider for it, but six months after implementation, total business volume from retailers was roughly the same as previously recorded figures. While…
-
Maximizing Tour Operators’ profits through Revenue Management
During a recent convention, I had an interesting exchange with a small group of wholesaler owners based in USA and LatAm. It went more or less like this: Owners: “We’re sick of X, Y and Z hotel chains! Even if we sold millions for each brand since forever, they treat us worse and worse every…
-
How to set up a data-driven culture in Tour Operators?
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not the average travel industry dweller. Except perhaps IT gurus and bus drivers, everybody’s on it for the glamour, the allure, the prospect of being involved in something the rich and famous expect on a weekly basis. Come on, be honest: Isn’t that true? Casually greeting King Hussein…
-
Analogies between Customer Segmentation and finding sex partners
True story: sick and tired of failed relationships, I decided I had enough of the random encounter method (so called destiny) and opted for a matching algorithm instead. You see, I’m a scientist at heart, much more rational than emotional. So I collected all the information I deemed necessary from online and offline sources, such…
-
Revenue Management for Tour Operators: a Darwinian trait
In the late nineties, I was able to persuade a handful of Caribbean hoteliers to adopt my ludicrously simple and cheap online booking engine. Among those pioneers, the GM of Couples Tower Isle: He even went to suggest to check website users’ behaviour and diversify rates! That visionary was the one and only Mr Paul…
-
Dynamic Pricing for Tour Operators: science, not religion
The owner of the big OTA chuckled at my question. “Every morning we have an entire team checking competitors’ rates and adjusting ours”, he said. “Dynamic pricing is essential today. It was a logical process for us”. Of course, it was. Less technology-prone patrons dind’t follow the same path, though, and I am having a…
-
8 Reasons Why Tour Operators need Rate Comparison Systems
A question of survival Years ago, an independent hotelier posed the same question to me, only linked to the accommodation business. I couldn’t believe my ears at the moment; since then I learnt that, although news and buzzwords travel fast in our industry, actual comprehension and implementation of new things slows down to a sluggish…
-
Case study: how a DMC can profit from data-driven decisions
Buy or lease a new minibus? This is a sample of how Business Intelligence can contribute to your incoming operations.
-
