Getting access to data is crucial in today’s world, especially in the case of a hotel. Used adequately, hotel business intelligence solutions can be a game changer. You can extract insights and data related to the operation, customer preferences, or even customer data. Knowing all of that can be very effective, and it can transform the way you optimize and run your hotel business.
What is hotel business intelligence?
At its core, hotel business intelligence focuses on providing access to comprehensive hotel data. This data is collected from multiple sources, including customers, staff, and payment systems, and is then consolidated and analyzed. By doing so, hotels can gain valuable insights into booking trends, market dynamics, and guest behavior. These insights help drive strategic decision-making, optimize operations, and fuel business growth.
What use cases can you find for hotel business intelligence?
As we can see, hotel business intelligence is very helpful, and it can make it easier for you to assess the hotel’s growth and performance. There are many use cases that you can focus on;
- With hotel business intelligence, you can perform very good customer segmentation. That means it becomes easier to acquire hotel-specific data. And then you can have access to a channel manager, revenue manager, booking engine and property management system. All of them can provide valuable data as you try to segment the audience and start offering personalized solutions to fit their requirements.
- Revenue management is another major use case. It allows you to figure out what services are very popular, where customer spending focuses on the most and so on. The hotel business intelligence software also allows you to perform demand forecasting, and machine learning, which could help with automating rates.
- Additionally, hotel business intelligence software can help provide great sentiment analysis. You’ll find it easier to identify customer satisfaction levels, and also any areas that could be improved.
- By analyzing customer data, you can also identify any signs of fraud or security concerns. That information is vital when it comes to safeguarding customer data and securing financial transactions.
- Every hotel wants to personalize their guest’s experience. With business intelligence tools, it becomes easier to do that, since you can analyze data like preferences, past stays and feedback.
Business intelligence vs data analytics
Terms like data analytics and business intelligence are used interchangeably in the hospitality world. And while they complement each other at times, there are some notable differences. Data analytics is a process through which you are collecting but also analyzing and processing data sets in order to extract patterns and insights. Business intelligence, on the other hand, is a set of practices and technologies that help you interpret data while transforming it.
BI tools acquire and process finance, marketing, operations, and sales data, with a focus on understanding business performance. There are different use cases for data analytics and business intelligence; it depends on your hotel and its specific requirements. Ideally, you want to use BI and data analytics together, because you can acquire important data to help you improve your current strategies, while improving your decision-making process.
What are the most important features of hotel business intelligence software?
The primary role of a business intelligence tool is to help you acquire and process hotel data. It can also provide historical info, along with data trends and an outlook towards the future of your business. If you’re looking to incorporate a BI tool into your tech stack, here are some of the key features you need to take into account!
- Data integration is crucial; you want to ensure that the hotel business intelligence tools you use can acquire data from as many sources as possible.
- Predictive data analytics also helps. You want to use the current data in order to figure out any future demand and prepare accordingly.
- Most hotel business intelligence tools these days either have cloud storage or they are fully cloud-based. That means it’s easy to access and process data via the cloud, without investing in expensive hardware on-site.
- Another aspect to consider would be advanced reporting. Being able to create reports that cover all available data is helpful, as it gives insights into how you can improve your business.
- In case you have multiple hotel locations, a multi-property function can prove to be very effective and useful.
- Data management and security features are pivotal as well. You need this feature because it will be easier to manage and store data while also implementing everything with ease and without dealing with any data loss or problems.
- Forecasting capabilities can be useful, since the hotel can identify potential expenses beforehand. That makes it easier to manage hotel budgets, since you’ll have a better idea of what those incoming costs might be.
- Having the ability to clean and manage data can be useful. Business intelligence tools usually need to sift through a lot of data, and not all of it might be relevant.
Using these tips can be very effective if you want to ensure you’re getting the ultimate hotel business intelligence experience. With that in mind, every hotel will have its own requirements. That’s why you need to avoid any rush and take your time as you implement everything properly.
Conclusion
Since data is king these days, using hotel business intelligence solutions can be a great way to identify trends and understand customer preferences, while also studying transactional data. We think it’s incredibly important to assess the different hotel business intelligence software options on the market and see what fits your needs the most. Once you implement these, you won’t have a problem enhancing your growth and pushing your business to the next level.
FAQs
What type of software is business intelligence?
Hotel business intelligence software is a type of solution designed to acquire, transform, analyze data, and create reports. You can read and access data and then outline it into a readable format that will provide you with great insights into company growth and what changes you can make.
How can hotel business intelligence software improve profitability and efficiency?
BI software is great because it gives you an insight into your operations. You can see what parts of your business are not profitable and why. Once you have that info, you can streamline operations and improve the way you work, which leads to exceptional profits.
What types of data can I collect for my hotel?
There are various types of data you can start collecting with hotel business intelligence tools. These include personal customer info, guest preferences, contact info, booking data, average duration of stay, preferred upgrades, and so on!
Mayela Lozano is a content strategist with a passion for hospitality and technology. She collaborates with InnQuest on content creation, highlighting how technology can streamline hotel operations and enhance guest satisfaction. When she’s not creating content, Mayela loves to travel and spend time with her two little ones, discovering new adventures and making memories along the way.
