Big data has been big news in the travel industry for a few years now. It offers the chance for travel companies to increase the number of sales and improve the travel experience of customers. While big data is a vast, complex challenge for many organizations, it is one of the key factors driving the evolution of the travel industry today and for the foreseeable future. Airlines, hotels, cruise companies, travel management, railways and travel agencies have an opportunity to improve their business and the customer experience by effectively handling the big data at their fingertips. That's not to say it is easy to collect, identify and analyze all of the bits of disparate data types that comprise big data. Travel companies can make better decisions based on the data aggregated from their customers to personalize services like travel booking to make them easier to navigate. For many years, CRM systems have allowed companies to create relevant, targeted marketing campaigns. Big data, however, uses customer information to create a truly personalized service. It allows travel websites to recommend a specific hotel to a specific user based on their previous holidays, requirements and preferences.

Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/centurylink/2014/04/30/how-big-data-is-transforming-the-travel-industry/

Today, companies have the option of collecting information about consumers which was never available in the past. This information is collected through internal sources, such as company websites and sales records, and external ones, such as social media, smartphones and tablets. This vast amount of information on consumers is increasingly referred to as big data. When a consumer visits a website for the first time, cookies are sometimes uploaded on his browser containing a unique ID, making it possible for the company to identify him during his next visits. Once identified, it will be possible to link the consumer to all information the company stored about his profile, which makes personalized marketing possible. Today, because of prescriptive analytics models embedded into their operational systems, websites and apps can analyze consumer information in real time in order to offer personalized travel options instantly. In the next few years, we will witness a gradual move to 1-to-1 marketing in the online travel category, with each consumer treated in a different way in terms of the whole marketing mix. To know more about this visit:

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2014/05/big-data-unique-ids-and-prescriptive-analytics-revolutionising-online-travel-marketing-part-1.html  .

An article by Brian Honigman, Digital Marketing Executive at Marc Ecko Enterprises and a social media specialist, conveys that while big data is a challenge for many organizations, it is one of the key factors that drive the evolution of the travel industry. Travel companies can make better decisions based on the data aggregated from their customers to personalize services like travel booking for an easier navigation. Big data can help travel companies understand the ongoing requests of their customer base and identify patterns in consumer behavior to determine offerings they may want in future.

To know more visit http://www.forbes.com/sites/centurylink/2014/04/30/how-big-data-is-transforming-the-travel-industry/