SIES COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE

(AUTONOMOUS)

SION (W), MUMBAI-22

TYBSc(IT), SEMESTER VI

INTERNAL PROJECT

For the Subject

Business Intelligence

Title of the Project: BI in Indian Travel Industry

Roll No Name Sub-topic
TIT2122085 Dinaz Shaikh Introduction & Impact of BI
TIT2122086 Saad Shaikh Article1: Google's newly
launched insight tools
TIT2122087 Saherish Shaikh Article 2: How to Turn Data
into Travel Insights
TIT2122088 Kiran Shelar Article 3: Role of Competitive
Intelligence Technologies

For the Academic Year

2021-2022
[TIT2122085]

Introduction

What is the Travel Industry?

In simple terms, the travel industry is concerned with providing services related to travel
from one location to another. This includes services that are directly related to the travel itself,
such as transportation, but also includes services related to catering for travelers’ needs and
wants after they have arrived at their destination.

It is often associated with the tourism industry and, there is significant cross-over
between the two, especially in terms of the businesses that fall under their respective umbrellas.
Tourism as an industry is of particular importance for the economy of a country. Millions of
people travel around the globe throughout the year. They travel on business, vacations,
sightseeing, or other reasons. Travelers spend a good amount of money on purchase of tickets,
accommodations, food, transportation, and entertainment. These expenditures are a significant
source of foreign exchange including direct and indirect employment.

The Difference Between the Travel Industry and the Tourism

Industry

While the travel industry and the tourism industry are interlinked, it is important to
understand that there are some notable differences between the two. Essentially, the tourism
industry relates to the industry centered on tourism, which is the specific act of travelling to a
different location, either for business or pleasure. By contrast, the travel industry is simply
related to a person’s travel from one place to another, and the various services they use in that
process. In some ways, this means that the travel industry is slightly broader than the tourism
industry because it covers a wider number of travel purposes and includes trips to non-tourist
destination
What Impacts Has the Coronavirus Had Upon the Travel Industry?

As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads around the world, it continues to significantly impact
the travel industry. This is due in no small part to the full or partial lockdowns in place as well as
the severe travel restrictions implemented by many governments. The results can be seen in the
cancellation of well-known events such as the UEAF Euro 2020, the ITB Berlin Travel Trade
Show and even the 2020 Olympics.

Innumerable business trips have likewise been cancelled due to a lack of job security
alongside operational restrictions. This has led to the suspension of even more events around the
world. Fiscal insecurity and a growing concern over liquidity issues have also led to a decline in
holiday bookings that is expected to last well into 2021.Travel-related organizations are likewise
enduring extremely challenging economic times. Certain restaurants and hotels are grappling
with occupancy rates which have fallen by as much as 90 per cent while countless airlines have
reduced their flight capacities by 50 per cent (or perhaps more). Some establishments have even
been forced to close as a result of the coronavirus.

Such situations result in mounting revenue losses that have been enhanced by the burden
of ongoing operational costs. It should therefore come as no great surprise that innumerable
firms within the travel industry are continuing to struggle with cash flow problems. As we have
never experienced such a situation, it is somewhat difficult to tell what the future may have in store.

Impact of BI in Travel Industry in India

Tourism value chain generates a lot of information. One type of information flow
is from the service providers to consumers or tourists. It provides information about
tickets, hotel rooms, entertainment, etc. The second type of information flow consists of
aggregate information about tourists to service providers.

Tourism service is data intensive with complex relationships. Organizations and

firms across the globe communicate with tourists through various channels to market
their products and build customer relationships creating data collections. Data provides a
good insight on the traveler’s behavior. Data here refers to searching, selection, and
consumption of merchandises and services for the satisfaction of their needs. The need
for accurate tourism forecasting is thus particularly important due to the industry’s
significant contribution to the economy.

Why Travel Industry needs Real Time Business Intelligence?

When entire travel industry comes into the picture, then it is linked with multiple other
industries for its survival. We can consider multiple suppliers such as hotel supplier, transport
supplier, visa/passport service provider, transport facility provider (bus, train, airline) and many
more depending on the size of the company. To run travel business successfully considering
these many factors, and to play with the data linked to these factors is always a big deal. Minute
misinterpretation in the received or perceived information can throw you out of the competition
and vice versa. Implementation of efficient business intelligence technology can provide this
valuable data to travel company for decision making, refining business strategies, getting insights
of market trends etc. in the visual form and makes the entire process of business operation a lot
easier that anyone can imagine.

How Business Intelligence Works?

Business analysis is the application that goes through multiple process like data mining,
process mining, online analytical processing, benchmarking and many more to gather data,
understand relationships between multiple components, finding out multiple patterns and finally
presents this valuable information in the form of charts, graphs and many other visual parameters
which travel company can use for entire business analysis. Business Intelligence can answer
numerous questions of travel company in multiple sectors. Travel company can set KPI’s (Key
Performance Indicators) to analyze key parameters of travel business and measure business
performance on that basis.

Supplier Management: Many times, suppliers mistake can lead to a huge loss to travel company
in terms customer retention, business loss. BI provides the real time data about multiple
suppliers, service providers travel company is dealing with. It provides you information about
amount payable to/ receivable from suppliers, multiple actions taken by suppliers at their end.
Customer behavior Patterns : This is the most important parameter when it comes to travel
industry. Customers are the valuable assets of travel company. Business intelligence studies
behavioral patterns of various customers and find out how they interact with the system, what are
they looking for, what are the different actions they take before confirming tour and many more
like that. This report gives complete analysis of customers changing behavior, their buying
patterns which travel company can use as a weapon to form strategies to influence and attract
customers and to turn them into loyal customers.

Inventory Management: BI if implemented properly in this sector, can save the last-minute
puzzle travel company needs to solve. Travel operators always needs to be aware of the
inventories in terms of tour packages like seats available, tickets booked, upcoming tours. Real
time data gives up to date information to travel companies to take steps in advance.

Market Trends: Business intelligence does market analysis for running trends in travel industry.
Trends can vary from analyzing customer’s changing choices/preferences, current running prices
in airline industry and other transport sector, seasonal vacation deals that other competitor is
offering and many other valuable information that can act as a catalyst for travel industry to keep
itself updated about market trends, take its advantage and make necessary steps according to data
available. For ex. BI allows travel companies to make wise decisions in terms of forming
business with multiple supplier’s/ service providers by comparing their current price they are
demanding in the market depending upon the report available and selecting one that can bring
huge profit to the business.

Business Operations : Business Intelligence records multiple processes run in the travel
business like supplier management, tour management, tour scheduling management, HR
management, Business promotion, finance management and simplifies complicated business
process equations and the output is refined real time data in the form of reports. For ex. Dealing
with which sector in terms of packages (group tour, package tour, honeymoon special, corporate
sector) is turning profitable to the business, what revenue international as well as domestic
packages brings to the business, comparison of the revenue, business generated during particular
time period and many more like that. With the help of this reports, travel companies can easily
analyze complicated business process and can forecast future trends and plan competitive
strategies accordingly.
Decision Making: BI facilitates predicting &forming future business strategies in terms of
investments, ROI, customer preferences, profitable markets in terms of multiple packages and
distribution channels like B2B 7 B2C, entire travel business operation management. Real time
business intelligence can bring out the valuable data for travel company out of multiple
complicated business processes, which is a way more difficult process if done by data analyst. It
gives you control over historic as well as real time business data.

Reports: BI provides visual reports about key areas of travel industry such as accounts &
finance, tour report and entire business report.

Accounts & Finance: This report can provide the real time data about cash flows, credit &
debits, profit generated/ loss occurred during particular period.

Tour Report: This report provides information about canceled tickets, booked tickets, passenger
details, repeat passengers, passenger report etc.

Business Intelligence is a must have software for travel industry as much as a perfect tour
operator software is. Travel agency software takes care of simplifying travel business tasks with
automated technology and business intelligence software simplifies the process of decision
making for travel industry.
[TIT2122086]

Article 1

Google's newly launched insight tools will help the travel industry
understand demand better through data
BI INDIA PARTNER

DEC 21, 2020, 15:14 IST

Throughout 2020, Google has launched a range of new tools and features to support the
global travel industry

 Google's newly launched tools provide demand trends to sector participants, be they a
chain of hotels, a small travel startup, or a booking agent, Travel Insights with Google will
help better understand pent-up travel demand and leverage insights from these tools for
businesses to position themselves for recovery.
 Based on user search data, the Travel Insights with Google tool can point to two kinds of
time-specific trends, increasing confidence in decision making in this dynamic period.

 In addition, the website also hosts the Travel Analytics Center.

As the Indian travel industry comes together to chart a path towards recovery, Google has
launched Travel Insights with Google. A website that provides demand trends to sector
participants, be they a chain of hotels, a small travel startup, or a booking agent, Travel Insights
with Google will help better understand pent-up travel demand and leverage insights from these
tools for businesses to position themselves for recovery.

Based on user search data, the Travel Insights with Google tool can point to two kinds of time-
specific trends, increasing confidence in decision making in this dynamic period. These are:

● Destination Insights - This tool will give a clear picture of the top sources of demand for a
destination, and the destinations within countries that travellers are most interested in visiting -
helping the industry map out a possible resumption of travel on specific routes and make choices
about where to communicate with potential future travelers.

● Hotel Insights - Hotel Insights is designed to help properties of all sizes, especially small and
independent hotels, understand where travel demand for their geography may be coming from,
and get tools, advice and tips for making their businesses stand out online.

For instance, in the month of November, growth in search interest for domestic travel to
cities such as Shirdi, Chandigarh, and Bagdogra was strong. In this same period, travelers in
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Gujarat top the searches for accommodation
options. The tool also provides granular insights into travel demand for single geographies split by
Air travel demand and demand for accommodation. During the same period, the tool shows that
the top demand for outbound travel from India by air came for Male, Bangkok and Dubai, while
the top growing cities by search interest were Male, Genoa and Boston. In addition, the website
also hosts the Travel Analytics Center. Available to Google’s commercial partners in the travel
sector, this will enable these organizations to combine their own Google account data with
broader Google demand data and insights to give a clearer picture of how to manage their
operations and find opportunities to reach potential visitors.

Commenting on the launch, Roma Datta Chobey, Director - Travel, Google India, said,
“The pandemic has had a direct, immediate and continuing impact on the travel industry. But it is
also one of the industries that has been at the forefront of digitisation. Our Travel Insights with
Google tool recognizes that, and amidst this volatility, provides players real-time, actionable
analysis of travel intention and sentiment, domestically and from overseas, for better and more
agile decision making. We hope that the utility of this tool will also accelerate the digitisation of
those in the industry that have been operating offline as going online is now an essential
requirement for recovery.”

The launch of the website follows Google’s other digitization initiatives. In August this
year, Google partnered with FICCI towards upskilling Travel MSMEs on digital, sharing insights
on changing consumer trends, and providing a roadmap to help the travel and tourism sector
digitize their business. In addition to the Travel Insights tools, the website will also be a one-stop
destination for other Google resources, including skills training courses through Grow with
Google, Digital Garage and Google for Small Business, and our tourism Acceleration
Programme with the UN World Tourism Organization. Throughout 2020, Google has launched a
range of new tools and features to support the global travel industry. Some of these include
surfacing travel advisories on Google Search, the discounted rates available for first responders,
and changing hotel and airline cancellation policies.

[TIT2122087]
 Article 2
How to Turn Data into Travel Insights (The Case for an Agile BI)
Be agile and data-driven. You’ve probably heard this a lot lately if you’re a travel
marketing professional. However, instead of becoming more agile, we are growing busier and
more overwhelmed.
Why are we so busy?
Because we’re constantly collecting and analyzing unprecedented amounts of data and
struggling to find actionable travel insights. Data generated from bookings, passenger name
records, pricing data, customer feedback surveys, website behavior and social networks
is growing exponentially. And yes, it can be overwhelming.
In fact, according to IBM’s Global CEO Study, travel and transportation CEOs rank information
explosion among the top reasons to transform their organizations. But while we all have been
handling large amounts of data for years, we don’t really have the analytical prowess to turn
this raw data into real travel insights.
According to another IBM study (Inside the Mind of Generation D):
The travel and transportation industry as a whole generally lags in terms of how data
is used. For example, travel and transportation companies are surprisingly behind in predictive
modeling, simulations and next-best-action decision making – which are the three areas
necessary to run operations efficiently and target customers effectively.
But while recent studies mainly focus on the use of advanced analytics (which is
undoubtedly of high value), I believe that most companies need to step back to (almost) the
beginning. You need to evaluate how and which data is used to create actionable travel
insights, understand customer behavior and track KPI performance.
Business Intelligence (BI) might sound like old news, but for the majority of travel
companies, this is the area to revisit or redevelop first in order to progress to the next stages of
data-driven decisions. BI is also a crucial component of the Measure Phase of your travel
website’s Conversion Rate Optimization process.
Traditional BI Is Failing to Deliver Travel Insights
Business Intelligence (BI) and Advanced Analytics are both parts of the wider Business
Analytics framework (see this article for more information about it). Together they have the
potential to bring great value and even transform your travel business. However, tackling them at
the same time might be daunting and, frankly unwise.
You see, in order to be good at advanced analytics you, first need to be excellent at
business intelligence. And to be excellent nowadays means breaking away from traditional
approaches, mentality and technology into the world of agile BI.
Consolidated customer view
For most companies in the travel industry, the first problem lies in bringing together all
sorts of disparate silos of traveler information. We need booking information from transaction
systems, web and mobile behavior (including searches, visits, abandoned carts), email data,
customer service info, etc. – to create a single, consolidated view of the customer.
The traditional approach to this problem is becoming a huge bottleneck and does not
meet the needs of the rapidly-changing travel landscape. Data-driven travel companies have
already recognized this and are therefore driving the shift to agile and self-service models.
Frustration with the current state of BI
According to recent research by Forbes Insight, analytics and business intelligence in particular
are at a crossroads. Frustrated with the long waiting periods, high costs, and questionable quality
of reports developed on their behalf, business leaders are concerned about getting left behind.
 Only 18% are very confident that they can get data on time

 Only 19% are very confident that their data is complete

 Only 23% are very confident that their data is accurate

 53% believe that their company is falling behind in BI

Travel Decision-Makers Need Travel Insights Fast. Here’s How to Deliver.

Your IT teams who are responsible for keeping the business informed have probably spent vast
resources defining a methodical, painstakingly detailed BI system development life cycle. This
cycle typically goes something like this:

Unfortunately, the quest to achieve perfection often results in anything but ideal
results. The problem is perfection is all about context. What was considered ideal back during
the requirements process isn’t so great now. Is it the business user’s fault that the context
changed? Clearly not, but the fact remains that just as companies need to be agile to succeed,
the process by which we deliver BI analytics needs flexibility baked in.BI agility is
achievable. BI perfection is not.
Agile BI is also about giving more power and freedom to the users. According to the
abovementioned Forbes Insight research, the most successful BI programs are significantly
more likely to place analysis and decision-making solutions into the hands of business
users. They have long been in the position of passively receiving information, and you might
think they don’t have the right capabilities to be data-driven, but you need to start making the
shift.
Difference between the traditional BI and agile BI
Breaking Away from the Query-Based Paradigm
Agile BI offers a new BI paradigm. Instead of thinking about how to build a BI
system (and plan all its moving parts and anticipate users’ requests and organizational
needs), build a system that will support thinking – a system that will encourage exploration,
self-service, and agility and help you discover insights you can actually act on.

Query-based traditional BI tools separate the application layer from the data. This means
long customization cycles required to answer new business questions, but most of all, it kills
flexibility.
For example, say you want to analyze the variability of length of stay in your different
hotels. You look at regions and then drill down to countries and cities to compare similar hotels.
What if you want to do a comparison of hotels based on ratings? Then you have to start a new
report/query. Based on location type? Another one. You probably get the point.
However, the biggest problem here is answering the questions no one has thought of before.
Agile, self-service BI, on the other hand, allows you to interconnect data in real-time. You
can get answers to your questions as you form them.
“Gathering and mining more and more data will not lead to better decisions. BI that isn’t
fundamentally self-service driven is not intelligence at all.” – Frank Kozurek, Head of Business
Intelligence at National Express, UK
To Get Valuable Insights, You Need Ideation
 In today’s competitive travel industry landscape, organizations must be agile, data-
driven, and responsive. Constant change and disruption is inevitable. Everything is dynamic and
you need to identify patterns that impact your business fast. Travel decision-makers are
challenged with coming up with ideas no one else has had yet, just to survive and compete.
These requirements put pressure on decision support systems to be highly flexible.
Simply stated, the traditional BI process prohibits ideation. The problem starts when the
business user puts in a request to IT. The answers they’re seeking are a starting point for building
a “reporting” solution. The data is put into a form to provide reporting in a system where the end
user has no ability to ideate. This is where the traditional BI process fails: it starts with a single
alternative of analyzing the data and building a solution around that. The end user has no
freedom to apply design thinking framework on data analysis with the traditional BI process.
And without this “freedom,” it is very difficult to discover actionable travel insights.
Power to the users
Agile BI not only provides a nimble technical environment, but also changes an
organization’s approach to data exploration. For example, it fosters testing and prototyping
that are critically important in the ideation process. If you are a travel decision-maker, you need a
BI system that helps you think, test ideas, and discover actionable insights – and do so quickly.
You need tools that are flexible and agile and enable you to ask a business question, build a chart
to find the answer, see connections, and then change the chart or create a new one
instantaneously.
A good example of a company known for its ideation, data usage and creation of new approaches
to business is Southwest Airlines. According to the company spokesman:
“Southwest uses aggregated, anonymous customer data to promote products, services, and
featured offers to customers on multiple channels, devices, and websites including
Southwest.com. By observing and looking into customer behaviors and actions online, we are
better suited to offer our travelers the best rates and experiences possible. We also use this
data to support the evolving relationships with our customers.” (source)
Incremental vs. Big-Bang Approach
When an organization embraces agile BI, BI projects are broken down into a series of
smaller projects that are planned for, developed, tested and rolled out on a continuous basis.
This iterative development approach facilitates continuous improvement and helps an
organization adapt more quickly to changing market conditions and organizational goals.
Each iteration is planned and reviewed by both the development team and the business
owners who have requested work. This close collaboration between business and IT results in
better communication, clearly-defined goals and end results that more accurately meet
expectations.
As with any agile initiative, agile BI tends to reduce total cost of change and promote a culture
that values reflection, accepts change and understands how to respond flexibly to shifts in
organizational value. Because BI project iterations are released on a regular basis, changes to
dashboards or data models can be made functional in a matter of days or weeks, providing travel
analysts with the travel insights they need to make data-driven decisions much faster than could
be realized with a more traditional big-bang project approach.
The Dark and the Bright Side of the Data
Every second, your travelers (customers) are creating a lot of new data – every user
interaction, booking, and customer engagement leaves you with data that you can either use or,
most often, forget.
The data that is left unanalyzed or not used effectively is called dark
data. Gartner describes dark data as “information assets that organizations collect, process and
store in the course of their regular business activity, but fail to use for other purposes.”
Not using data effectively can be very costly – for example, bad data supposedly costs United
Airlines 1 billion USD annually, or approximately 3% of annual sales.
For travel companies with a strong online presence, dark data represents a sizable portion
of all data stored. Such examples might include:
 Last email communication date to your customers

 Reactions to different prices offered to particular users

 How many times a user resets their password

 What kind of mobile device or web browser is used

 Free text feedback on an airline booking, hotel stay or recent car hire
  Additional passengers or guest names on a flight ticket or hotel room

 Types of ancillary services customers are buying after booking their flight or hotel

These data points or features are often overlooked by marketing teams as serving any
useful purpose. Usually there is a perception that this type of information is only collected for
compliance, fraud protection or regulatory requirements.
This is where agile methods of data visualization, exploration and discovery can be used
to find new ways of activating dark data to provide new opportunities for your travel
organization.
While dark data can appear dusty and uninteresting on the surface, there are methods that will
turn it into highly granular, rich customer insights – which reveal whether your customers
are traveling for business or leisure, whether they have small children, and whether they’re tech
savvy, price sensitive, etc.
Skyscanner an example of agile BI in travel
Skyscanner, for example, were dealing with an overwhelming volume of data, ranging
from web traffic to flight schedules and marketing campaigns – all buried in tens of thousands of
Excel spreadsheet rows. Thus, they often overlooked important details. In addition, the inflexible
nature of spreadsheets meant that they couldn’t efficiently test hypotheses or react to new market
opportunities.
They turned to agile BI to deliver travel insights and share them quickly and easily
across the business. Today, multidisciplinary teams from across the business quickly identify
trends and analyze web traffic data to help design sales and marketing campaigns, grow revenue,
and increase brand loyalty. Answers to questions such as, “Is this traveler planning his next trip,
just returning from one, or looking for inspiration on where to go?” are just a few clicks away for
them.
Singapore Airlines – data analytics result in 20% uplift in ancillary revenue
Another example of taking a data-driven approach to create personalized ancillary offers is
Singapore Airlines. Using data, dynamic merchandising and pricing to create personalized offers
should be “the core” of your ancillary revenue framework, if you are an airline looking to
increase ancillary revenue.
Thanks to data analytics, Singapore Airlines has been able to drive a 20 per cent greater
uptake in sales of preferred seats – which come at a fee – to selected passengers. This can be
expanded to other areas of ancillary revenue such as duty free products, insurance and cabin
upgrades. (source)
Data Visualization – The Key Step to Identifying Insights
To get the most out of your data, you should work on visualizing it – not because graphics are
cute or fun, but because visual presentation can often communicate more efficiently and
comprehensively than text alone.
Formally speaking, data visualization is the use of visual representations of abstract data to
amplify cognition and communication. Simply put, visualization helps us think and
communicate. While it is true that some people have better visual memory than others and some
are better at understanding raw numbers, we are all visual creatures and thus we can all “read”
visuals more effectively than numbers.
This is because the human visual system is an extremely fast pattern-seeker that provides us two
main benefits:
Benefit 1: It is much faster than any other method of perception
 Visual perception is based on iconic memory and preemptive perception, which
is much faster than the conscious types of memory (short-term and long-term) that
get involved when we read numbers.
Benefit 2: It reveals patterns that would otherwise remain hidden
 Visual perception uses less of your memory than reading numbers and therefore
allows you to compare more items at the same time.

Conscious reading vs. subconscious visualizing

Let’s consider the following example and try to answer the following question: How many times
does the digit ‘5’ appear in the sequence of numbers?

How long did it take you to come up with the answer when you were reading the digits one by
one compared to turning on your visual mechanisms? I’m sure you figured out the answer in the
second example much faster.
However, we should not ignore the fact that there is a time, place and purpose for utilizing tables
as well as graphs:
 Graphs (visuals) are great for making sense of the data and general comparisons –
e.g. conversion rate is increasing, revenue from Affiliate A is correlated with
revenue from Affiliate B, etc.
 Tables (numbers) are great for finding individual values and individual value
comparisons – e.g. margin per booking in Location A in January was 89.13 EUR,
which is 12.7% more than in February.
Dashboards
“Dashboard” is a buzzword often misused to describe any display that is interactive and/or
graphical. Ideally, a dashboard is a visual display of the most important information needed to
achieve one or more objectives that has been consolidated and arranged on a single screen so it
can be monitored at a glance (Stephen Few).

Example of KPI representation showing the numbers in context

Dashboards are tools that improve your “span of control” over a lot of business data. You
must design them to help your users maintain so-called situation awareness:
 Perception of the elements in the environment –> What is important?

 Comprehension of the current situation –> How are we doing?

 Projection of future status –> Where are we going to be?

Example of BI dashboard for a hotel

But remember – different users (roles) have different objectives, so they must each have
their own versions of dashboards.
The dashboard does its primary job if it tells the viewer in little more than a glance how he
should act. To do that, a dashboard should always show numbers in context. Examples of context
include:
 Compared to what?
  Is this good or bad?

 How good or how bad?

 Are we on track?

 Are we doing better than we have in the past, or worse than we forecasted?

At Southwest Airlines, the dashboards have replaced monthly PowerPoint reports, which took
an analyst two full days each month to prepare. Now, instead of creating a new report every
month, the analyst simply refreshes the data to update the dashboard. (source)
Conclusion
The travel industry is changing quickly, and so should you. The days of BI as a huge, big-bang
project are over. Today you need to embrace agile methods of both system development as well
as data usage. In order to compete with other travel businesses, you must find valuable travel
insights faster.
Give your users access to all the data they can possibly have access to, not only the data you
think they need. You will be amazed by how quickly users who previously had no new ideas
and didn’t know the data well will start getting new insights.
“People now feel the value in themselves because their work makes a greater impact on the
company,” says Troy Roskop of Southwest Airlines. “It’s that proud feeling you get from
knowing you’ve really made a difference. And you can’t get there until you have the right tool
in place.”
Yes, you also will need to change your technical environment to support agile thinking. You can
use some of the great tools available in the market today, such as Qlik or Tableau. They are
built for agile and will make the whole process of discovering travel insights easier for you.
The experience is out there. Great examples are numerous. Users are ready. Data is bountiful.
It’s now down to you to become agile and data-driven.
[TIT2122088]

Article 3

Role of Competitive Intelligence Technologies in Travel Industry

Importance of Business Intelligence in Travel Industry

It is known that technology has affected businesses as well as individuals to a substantial level
both in for benefits and annoyance. The travel industry is no exemption. There have been
adequate discussions on whether technology has promoted the travel industry or has damaged it
more.
The Internet, technology software and communications tools all have made the travel industry
processes more accessible for every player. Technology has brought effectiveness,
mechanization, data intelligence and more business prospects. It has inserted an assortment of
new things to cater different customer requirements, swift development, innovation in services
and products to be offered in the market. Traveller data and business openings for new entrants
in the industry call them the disruptors.

New business concepts backed with travel technology

Airbnb is a typical case; the conception of staying in people’s homes during the travel is not a
new idea and was done earlier. Technology has just enabled it by swift-moving and easily
reachable global scenario. Technology and the internet have made data accessible to everybody
easily. Having said that, what adds value to the traveller are applicable and planned insights from
this data, assorted with the precise intelligence and insights from it. This is where the travel
technology software comes into the picture.
Technology software playing a key role
Technology software tools have played an essential role of the driver of this transformation of
coming up with the spot on traveller experience based on very explicit customer needs. Mobility,
tracking, and monitoring of personal as well as social activities, especially predictive data
analytics are what will influence the new business models and opportunities.

Needed technology actions by tour and travel companies to keep up with

market competition:
 Structuring of data
This is not restricted to the gathering of data but also arranging it in a precise and structured
manner to be further used for different business use cases. This will further augment the potential
of managing non-structured data to take it into utilization.

 Real-time web data extraction

Swiftness and freshness of the information sketch out its real worth. Today the value of data lies
in its real-time extraction from single or multiple sources. Customers want all information
instantaneously and updated with real-time comparisons. Thus, explains the increasing use of
software tools of DataCrops like online travel intelligence which assists in understanding the
overall market dynamics and the competitive pricing strategies.
 Social media data extraction and intelligence
Social Media data extraction is significant as it assists in grabbing the expanding user-generated
content that travel companies are interested in for product and service reviews, guest feedbacks,
customer complaints, brand monitoring along with competitor and market trend analysis. It also
comprises of extracting and analysis of tweets, likes, marketing updates, discussions,
promotions, pictures, and images.

DataCrops Social Media Intelligence solutions are well capable of analyzing professional and
social data along with actionable analytics packaged with social media data extraction.
 Price monitoring and comparison
The price monitoring software offers complete visibility into competitors’ pricing and product
packages in the travel industry, enabling intelligence to make beneficial pricing decisions. The
online travel industry is going forward with pricing intelligence software solutions that have the
complete facility to extract pricing data from their single or multiple competitor web portals.
 o Pricing and competitive intelligence
With DataCrops competitor price analysis software and competitor price monitoring tools, travel
companies can improve their price competitiveness, advance their competitor pricing analysis
strategies and implement their pricing tactics successfully.
 Data Intelligence and Analytics
With the understanding of consumer behavior through data intelligence and analytics, needed
components like profitability and customer experience can be evaluated for travel and hospitality
revenue management.

With all these advantages, users on both sides of this travel business cycle benefit. The booking
engines and online travel portals are now more influenced by online research and price
comparison. Tour operators can enhance their travel package offerings while completing their
online reservations which they can enable with enhanced technologies, further capturing
consumer insights as well as intelligence.

Key Takeaways
As per the travel companies, the expansion and progressions of technology have assisted them to
augment communication, handiness, outputs, the swiftness of business, marketing and increase
in overall revenue generation.

However, it has turned essential for traditional travel agencies to advance their business
strategies in order to stay alive in the dynamically transformed travel marketplace. The
modernized e-Commerce driven environment has made mandatory for these offline players to
enhance their offerings with personalization and with efficiency to the current marketplace.

The traditional tour and packages operators will see additional evolution as technology is
carrying on to advancements with every single day. As long as requirements for packaged tour
and travel remain, there will be a space for travel companies as well as OTAs. DataCrops
technology like Competitor Price Monitoring & Tracking Software for travel, flight, and hotel
industry will go a long way in fulfilling this demand for the worldwide customers on both the
business ends.
References
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https://industry.siliconindia.com/viewpoint/cxoinsights/machine-learning-changing-the-dynamics-of-
tourism-industry-in-india-nwid-10142.html

https://www.itouroperatorsoftware.com/blog/blog-business-intelligence-for-travel-industry.php

https://datacrops.com/blogs/role-competitive-intelligence-technologies-travel-industry/

https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/ad-tech/news/googles-newly-launched-insight-tools-will-help-
the-travel-industry-understand-demand-better-through-data/articleshow/79838122.cms

https://diggintravel.com/turn-data-travel-insights/