"How Travel Apps Are Leveraging Big Data Analytics To Enhance Customer Experience " -- Big Data and the tools to analyze and distill that data into useful information, create a tremendous opportunity for consumers to realize a smarter and more efficient travel experience. The opportunity is realized through the confluence of mobile devices and apps, social media, analytics and an ocean of publicly available travel-related information made accessible via the Internet. A variety of digital products and services are emerging to help travelers make the most of their holiday vacation time, as well as when they travel for business, and get the most from their available travel budget. Predicting flight delays According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, over 20 percent of flights arrive late, and of those flight delays, almost half are due to inclement weather. KnowDelay offers a service to help travelers avoid weather-related flight delays b y predicting them and notifying travelers three days in advance of their trip, while there’s still time to find alternatives or change plans. The data scientists behind KnowDelay have spent years to develop a predictive engine that takes into account real-time and historical data on weather and airport performance to score an itinerary for the likelihood of delays. If you are booking within three days of travel, KnowDelay can score your itinerary to identify the likelihood of a weather-related flight delay. All travelers place great value on their travel experiences, and most travelers have limited budgets to spend, but according to a recent study by Expedia and ComScore, 78 percent didn’t know where they wanted to go for a quick getaway. Also, a recent survey revealed that 50 percent of travelers will not stay at a hotel that does not have ample positive reviews posted online. But who has the time and energy to sift through millions of re views from friends, family, travel bloggers and travel agents? TripAdvisor aims to address this issue – it operates at the intersection of social media, consumer reviews and travel destination information. Its ‘Travelers’ Choice’ feature compiles reviews from millions of travelers to identify the best in travel destinations, such as hotels for romantic getaways, beaches, islands and attractions. Mobile devices, specifically tablet computers and smartphones, have rapidly become the predominant computing platform of choice for both consumers and business users. Home PCs have been replaced by Apple iPads connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi as the platform of choice for casual travel planning. The portability of these powerful computing devices makes them ideal for the business traveler or vacationer on the go. The next generation of breakthrough consumer travel tools that combine the use of Big Data, social media and mobile devices is travel planning applications. Travel planning apps are less concerned about how to get to your vacation destination, but rather focuses on how you will spend your time when you are there. According to a study done by Expedia and ComScore, 67 percent of mobile users surveyed dream about travel once per month; 48 percent of mobile users use their mobile device to research travel and dream vacations, most often a tablet computer connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi either at home or at a coffee shop. Personalized travel experience Travel planning apps go beyond “booking”. First, users specify their preferences, for example, the type of travel experience they are looking to create, such as a family vacation or romantic getaway, the activities they would like to engage in while vacationing, such as wine tasting, fine dining, hiking, kayaking, historical/religious sites, or art museums, and even the timing of their trip and when they would like to enga ge in their activities while traveling, such as at the beginning or end of their trip, and early morning or late evening, as well as their target budget. Once users specify their preferences, the travel planning app intelligently searches the Internet for publicly available, curated, and even proprietary content, including places to stay and dine, things to do and see, ratings, reviews, and recommendations of the same, and generates a suitable itinerary using a scheduling algorithm. The itinerary can be modified, rearranged, and edited manually with the drag and drop feature. Embedded maps make it easy to navigate from the hotel to activity locations. Travel planning apps can be used during and after travel, in addition to pre-travel planning. Travelers can share their experiences with friends and family via social media, as well as post their own reviews, ratings and recommendations to help other travelers. The smartest travel planning apps use Big Data analytics conc epts to observe and keep track of where travelers go, the activities they enjoy most, what foods they like to eat, including favored types of cuisine, sensitivities, like food allergies or gluten free preferences, and price ranges, and then make more useful recommendations. This type of advanced customer targeting can be leveraged by advertisers to send real-time promotions or offers to the traveler on their mobile device; such offers, backed up by analytics, create a win-win situation and are 10 times more likely to be acted upon by consumers than randomly generated ads. Douglas A. Gray is Chief Solutions Officer of Blue Star Infotech and leads the Advanced Technologies and Software Product Groups. He specializes in the design of web, mobile & analytics solutions in the travel & hospitality industry. Read More-- -- Read More at informationweek.in/Software/13-09-05/How_travel_apps_are_leveraging_Big_Data_analytics_to_enhance_customer_ex perience.aspx:)
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 05:45:47 +0000
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