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Start Small and Start Fast - Data Warehousing for Travel Agencies and Travel Management Companies

Sep 30

Written by: ashish.kumar
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 2:29 PM 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 

Data warehousing is among fairly recent technology concepts holding great promise. Data warehouse supports better customer relationships, decision-making, and conversion of data into more usable forms, but such goals are achievable only where its application is appropriate and its execution skillfully managed.

 

In terms of Travel, a simplified definition of data warehouse is the organization and normalization of the mass of transaction data agencies generate in ways that facilitate practical, useful queries and enhanced reports. Main goal of a data warehouse is to provide merchandising and to make offers relevant and timely based on a customer's historical context, and then providing that knowledge through various touch points, such as an online travel agency or a call center. Data warehouse can be used in an operational setting to retrieve historical context about the particular person, including shopping trends and destinations of interest. This helps the online application craft a more pertinent and relevant offer to enhance the customer experience and help to close the sale.

 

One example that is pertinent to most people is finding the best travel deal. If a customer is shopping online for flights and hotels in Las Vegas, the data warehouse can provide knowledge of that shopping behavior even though the customer isn't buying anything yet. From a supplier perspective, the data warehouse searches for the best-priced flights based on different carriers. When we see someone shopping a particular market, we can build a campaign and bring that to his or her attention. You've already got interest—the customer wants to go to Vegas. If the customer sees an ad pertinent to that, it helps generate a better customer experience.

                                                                                                                   

Thus Mega Agencies and TMC are working diligently to build technology platforms that can pull together global data in a unified fashion. Also on the drawing boards--and in the technology budgets--are designs to create globally standardized point-of-sale systems and self-service reservation tools, as well as worldwide intranet sites to provide communication and service links for agents around the globe.