Predictive analytics in the travel industry: use cases

Published June 5, 2019   |   

The latest technological advancements have taken the world by a storm. It’s immensely impressive to see how much better and convenient our lives have become, thanks to those advancements.

One such recent development is the discovery of big data. It’s the concept to explain our advantage by making sense of the voluminous set of data sets we have been collecting. Data is a powerful word and runs all our major developments. It allows businesses to understand their shortcomings and strengths and plan accordingly. This is why businesses are investing their money in collecting meaningful data. They are making use of these data-sets to find meaningful insights for their business.

The travel industry is making use of big data like a lot of other significant businesses in the market. With consistent use, they have been able to gain the right momentum in the right direction. The amount of data generated by travelers on the web is, vast. And it keeps growing by multiple folds as more and more people are making travel plans. When used diligently, travel industries can use data insights to have an edge over their competitors.

Big data has the potential to bring in a major change in the travel industry by improving the travel experience. It allows businesses to check their customer’s preferences and allows them to reach out just in time. In simpler terms, big data is enabling businesses to create customized packages for their audiences, as and when required. This improves the conversion rates of travel businesses by multiple folds.

Wouldn’t you want to book a resort on the beach, when that’s what has been running in your mind for weeks? Wouldn’t you appreciate booking a room, your flights and getting your itinerary all in a matter of minutes? You most certainly would, given the busy schedule you have. Big data has made this possible, both for travelers and for businesses. It tells us effectively, how data could be used to improve our lives.

In reality, big data is all about finding meaningful patterns from vast data-sets. Statistical models are applied to bring out those insights from the data-sets we have at our disposal. These patterns allow us to make predictions for future based on existing trends. This is what is called predictive analysis. In layman’s language, it’s the study of present and past trends in data-sets to make predictions for the future. This is how the travel industry makes predictions of a customer’s travel plans for a season. It studies if s/he has been booking flights and hotels on mountains every winter.

Here are a few ways of how predictive analytics is being used in the travel industry.

Alerting and monitoring systems

The amount of data generated and recorded by businesses are huge. It’s not humanly possible to keep a track of these data and their anomalies. Businesses are making use of supervised machine learning techniques to find defects in their systems. It studies a number of factors and alerts when something abrupt or rare happens in the system. These algorithms are making it possible for businesses to take immediate action before an accident starts to show up.

Sentiment analysis and profiling

The whole world is functioning on social media today, be it an individual or a business. The crowd on social media platforms is demanding and getting larger by the day. This results in more volumes of data coming from those platforms. It’s not possible to monitor your social media manually anymore.

Modern travelers share their photos and sentiments on social media when they are traveling. Most travelers like to review locations and hotels on social media for others to follow. Sentiment analysis enables businesses to read and analyze these data in fractions of seconds. Predictive analysis checks the sentiment for your business and responds immediately. That’s how businesses respond to you within minutes after seeing your bad review on the web.

Click and conversion optimization

Online marketing is all about making a sale without having to do a lot of product exposure. Luring customers to an advertisement is never enough if it doesn’t convince them to take the next course of action.

Predictive algorithms estimate conversion rate, positioning of the advert and optimize them. They understand passenger needs based on the various factors that seem to affect the traveler’s preferences. This creates a new platform for online advertising.

Recommendations and recommender systems

Isn’t it equally creepy and impressive if Amazon recommends diapers to you? It happened because it had studied your last purchase history and understood if you are planning to have a baby. You have probably ordered a home pregnancy kit in the past and then a couple of other baby-related products. Netflix and Amazon are the two most efficient examples of product recommendations.

Recommendations rule the travel industry. Imagine you are browsing through different locations of Iceland and checking flight rates. Wouldn’t you be convinced if a pop up for a cheap & attractive Airbnb comes up? You might not do the booking immediately, but it will certainly persuade you to make an Icelandic trip. It all happens based on what searches you have done in the past. Predictive analytics can create efficient recommendation algorithms based on the data we have at hand.

There are also a hundred different flights that connect two different countries today. There are a thousand more when one counts the possible services between these points. So why, and how, do one exact solution and just a few services make sense to an individual traveler? Recommender services provide mutually beneficial plans for both travelers and travel providers. The solution is suited to their preferences and is monetarily sensible for both parties too. Predictive analysis studies user behavior and makes meaningful suggestions.

Technological advancements are at their peak right now. Newer technological trends keep coming up every other day, amazing its users. It’s about time, we, as users put in our best foot forward and make the best use of it.