Heaps of Pyrite

Analytics in the Leisure Travel Business

Pyrite is the mineral commonly known as “fool’s gold.”

The term “data-driven” is now a de rigueur standard in the corporate game of buzzword bingo, hard-wired in the lexicon of every executive this side of the green-bar era. But data is nothing but information and the concept of informed decision-making is not new. What changed? The sheer volume of information available to even modestly resourced businesses, and the tools to collect, store, cross-reference and serve that information.

Businesses that were once starved for data are now drinking from a fire hose that requires graduate-degree technical skills to manage. But data is merely the raw material from which insights are mined. It takes perspective and wisdom on the business side to discern gold from pyrite. Pyrite to a business is distracting, misleading, even downright dangerous.

Joe’s Ten Principles for Data-Driven Success

 

“Excuse me, where’s the Department of Insights?”

In most leisure travel businesses, analytics are decentralized among functional departments, all supported by I.T. Marketing manages engagement and acquisition data, revenue management issues the top-line commercial reporting, and sales tracks account performance. The risk with this approach is that data silos can mirror organizational silos. It can also be resource inefficient, hiding redundancies and frustrating senior management looking for a single source of truth. All of these issues can be mitigated with pro-active processes and collaboration

Commercial Data

CUSTOMERS

Transactions, touchpoints, declared interests, demographics, psychographics, etc.

BOOKINGS & REVENUE

Gross, churn, paces, product & segment performance, etc.

MARKETING

Website metrics, search optimization, email, direct mail, media performance, social engagement, etc.

SALES & DISTRIBUTION

Channel mix, account performance, commissions, group activity, etc.

Analytics

DATA DERIVATIVES

Segmentation, customer lifetime value, predictive behavior/targeting, multi-touch attribution, etc.



Research

AD-HOC AND SERIAL SURVEYS, PANELS, FOCUS GROUPS

Customer preferences & intent, brand health, trade issues, product design & development, etc.



Reporting

DASHBOARDS

Crisp, clean & reconciled; KPIs thoughtfully prioritized

SPECIALTY REPORTS

Curated to serve the business

AD HOC REPORTS

A portable, flexible and connected data structure that allows users to filter, sort, and pivot in real time