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Don’t get me wrong, data is valuable, but on its own, it’s useless. Analysed data helps us to assimilate knowledge, and gives us a global vision with real insights into the needs and preferences of each customer

Therefore, merely stating that “data is overrated” may be surprising at this point in time. Data is only valuable if it generates information resulting from crosschecking different sources, which provides us with the knowledge to make a decision or a call to action.

Thanks to marketing tools, we can identify customer needs and address them better than the competition. But, to do this, we must know them as much as is humanly possible, meaning it’s essential to listen, be flexible, adapt, measure to correct and then re-measure. We always need to re-measure! Without all of this, simply collecting data would lead to nothing.

Actors of the tourist sector must make use of the tools available that allow us to measure the return of investment in a relatively easy-to-understand way and after that start to apply the knowledge to the stated goals, so that we can adapt to new demanding and digitalised tourists. This knowledge comes from both transactional data (flight reservations, average spending, etc.) and behavioural data (flights searches, comments on social networks, website reviews, etc.).

The goal is to follow the complete cycle of the trip, passing through the inspirational phases, decision making, analysing the customer’s behaviour during their stay and comments left on specialised websites once they return home. Once we’ve obtained all the data from the travel cycle, then comes the essential part, which is to analyse it and make conscious decisions to satisfy each type of public.

The appearance of numerous digital marketing tools with a high level of technological innovation results in more fluid and effective contact with customers, i.e. immediacy in conversations with the customer and being able to respond to their needs in real-time by knowing their interests and wishes in advance. It changes the way we approach the customer and the way we advertise, and all of this is because the way customers use tourist services in this day and age has changed.

Data analysis is now, more than ever, essential in large hotel chains and travel agencies. The vast amount of data produced by consumers these days is increasing day after day and must be built upon to perfect the strategies we need to follow. The digital footprint left behind by each potential customer must be analysed in detail so we can extract the real value of the data and be able to personalise communication with each potential traveller.