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Predicting Travel Trends

Jadd Elliot Dib, Founder and CEO at Pangaea X, explains how Big Data is significantly improving and transforming the global sector

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The Covid-19 pandemic has had a crippling impact on the travel sector. With planes grounded and hotels temporarily shut, in line with lockdown protocols, the travel sector was severely hit. It has since started to get back to normal with the lifting of lockdowns and resumption of global travel. This time the travel sector is leveraging technology to offer unique services to customers and improve its profitability. Big Data and analytics are allowing companies in the travel sector to understand customer preferences and become part of the latest trends. Companies utilising Big Data are already reaping the rewards and it’s time for the sector as a whole to grasp the important technology and its impact. Here is how Big Data is changing the travel industry.

Customer experience

Airlines or other businesses in the travel sector have a vast array of interactions with customers through various methods. Every interaction with a customer can prove to be a crucial data point that on its own has little value, but when aggregated with thousands of millions of other data points, can create a pattern or trend.

Such trends can predict customer preferences and understand business strengths and weaknesses to create campaign or business strategies that aim to improve performance and capture trends. Through such analytics, companies can make informed decisions about the services they provide, the offerings that are not profitable and technologies and resources to invest in. It can massively change the way we travel and the experiences we have as travellers.

Market research

Most companies have used historical data to justify their seasonal change in prices. The strategy has worked, but there is more to pricing and offerings than just historical trends. Customer preferences are continuously evolving in today’s world and relying on historical trends may not produce the same results as they used to.

The key is to predict future trends and act on them. With Big Data, businesses can understand latest trends from social media or other platforms and offer services accordingly. This can become a key selling point for businesses such as travel and tourism companies where they can gauge customer preferences and have unique experiences available to them.

Targeted marketing

Marketing is one of the largest expenses for most travel sector businesses as they aim to beat competition while inspiring people to travel. But how to know if marketing a certain product to a certain audience is the right use of resources?

Previously, it was historical data and experienced decision-making for business to ensure efficient marketing. Big Data can allow a more accurate prediction of high return targeted marketing campaigns that ensure company resources are used efficiently. Data and analytics enable businesses to understand consumers better and segregate them, accordingly, making marketing services more efficient in order to produce better returns on your investment.

Revenue management

Expectations to perform better sometimes come with a lot of pressure and need to be managed. With Big Data, the management has the right tools to predict trends and market their products efficiently while ensuring the right pricing strategy is in place. This can help them improve revenues and manage expectations of the board.

For instance, if market conditions are difficult for the travel sector, the management can use Big Data to comprehend latest trends and build a business, pricing and marketing strategies accordingly while managing the board’s revenue management expectations. The travel sector is ripe for a major transformation owing to Big Data and analytics. Most companies have either started to explore the technology or plan to do so. It’s only a matter of time until when the technology will form the backbone of the travel sector.

• Business Technology Review