How Do You Take Your Hotel’s Data Game to the Next Level?

So, you are interested in hospitality data? In the current world of hospitality, data has become the cornerstone of strategic and tactical decision-making. This article explores how data and data tools can help transform operations across the hotel, improve communication and efficiency, and drive revenue and profit growth. Uncover the first steps to integrating analytics into your hotel’s day-to-day for a competitive edge in the market.

The Importance of Data in the Hotel Industry

Using data smartly can make a big difference. Data helps you understand what happens in your hotel, such as the best times to sell rooms, prices to set, and which guests make the most profitable bookings.

Data-driven insights can help plan marketing promotions, give context to the production of a corporate account, and show you the commercial value of each individual room type. Understanding how your hotel performs compared to the competition puts your hotel’s performance in the right context.

Using tools that help you connect the dots across different data sources and enable you to visualize that data easily, a wealth of decision-making capabilities comes to life. A hotel-specific Business Intelligence (BI) tool helps you make quick and smart decisions to optimize performance and beat the competition. In short, make data your secret weapon.

3 Steps to Leverage Technology to Take Your Data Game to The Next Level

Below are three simple steps to leverage technology to take your data game to the next level.

1. Choose the Right BI tool by Evaluating Your Needs

1. Which parts of the business do you want to cover: Just Commercial data or Finance and perhaps others?
2. Are you looking for high-level and/or predefined dashboards, or do you expect fully customizable elements to be able to be tailored to your specific objectives?
3. What specific functionalities do you want to be available? Think of Net Revenue analysis, Room Type analysis, specific integrations, etc.

2. Training and Adoption

1. Depending on the level of complexity and functionality of the tool you select, it is likely that some training is required to understand and use the tool fully.
2. Adoption across the business, meaning across levels and departments, will enable your teams to work more seamlessly. They will be looking at the same data, perhaps presented differently. They will speak in the same structures, and most importantly, they will all turn to data to help with direction and answers.
3. According to Juyo Analytics, many clients replace slide presentations and spreadsheets with their BI tool in meetings. Putting an interactive dashboard on the screen will answer questions faster and allow for seamless delving further if questions arise in the meeting by simply clicking through.

3. Use Data Wisely: Start Using Insights from the BI Tool to Make Improvements

1. Particularly in the beginning, define the domain you want to impact specifically so that you don’t get lost in the depth of the tool. Analysis Paralysis is a real thing!
2. Focus your initial work on low-hanging fruit: which processes can I optimize without much effort? Which insights can drive a quick positive outcome?
3. Finally, as you expand your use of the BI tool, start using more of its functionalities and truly embed data-driven processes in your hotel.

Selecting the Right BI Tool

Many elements differentiate the various BI tools. Particularly important differences are:

• The possible level of customization of dashboards or even the option to “build from scratch“. How customizable are each of the visualizations?
• Does the tool only ingest PMS data or external sources such as rate-shopping, review, benchmarking, RMS, forward-looking demand data, etc.?
• How does the tool treat time: can I only see data across entire months, or can I select the exact date range? Can I select the Days of the Week I want to analyze? Can I combine Book and Stay periods in my analysis? Can I flexibly compare dates against any other date range, or am I limited to comparing Year-over-Year?
• What other features does the tool offer? Think of Net Revenue Analytics, Automatic account deduplication, dashboard sharing, calendar flexibility, etc.

Beyond Tools: Cultivating a Data-Driven Culture for Hotel Success

You will need the right technology and people to get the most value out of your data. Implementing a more data-driven approach in your hotel is a longer journey and cannot be achieved by simply purchasing a BI tool. In addition to technology and people, you will need to impact the culture in the business to fully adopt and advocate awareness of the available data and the analytical possibilities.

Embracing data and business intelligence is not just a trend; it’s necessary for modern hotels aiming for success. Start leveraging these powerful tools to unlock insights and optimize decision-making, setting your property apart in the competitive hospitality landscape.

Free Checklist: Start Using Data in Your Hotel’s Decision-Making

Using data to power insights and decisions at your Hotel can position you for commercial success, help increase guest satisfaction, and reduce costs. This checklist provides a starting point for hoteliers new to data analytics in the hotel industry.

Click here to download the checklist “Start Using Data in Your Hotel’s Decision-Making“.