| |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y Jason Michael Fawaz, Vice President of Revenue at Hawkeye HotelsDATA AND AUTOMATIONIN THE HOTEL INDUSTRYBig Data is a buzzword that has been thrown around quite a bit over the last few years, but its relevance in decision making for hotels is more prominent now than it ever has been. Well, before the concept of big data was introduced, hotel management teams made key decisions, whether it was a change in rack rates or deciding how to staff or order for the next few weeks, based on gut feeling. Of course, the savvy hotel operators utilized their forecasts to get a better gauge on their future business, but if the forecast was based off gut feeling, could it be counted on for accuracy? If they were inaccurate, both top line revenue and bottom line profitability would be adversely affected.Enter Big Data. With recent enhancements to non-guest facing technology, the ability to rollup copious amounts of reservation data into more u ser - fri end l y formats has made it much easier to learn about the buying behaviors of our guests. When we understand their behaviors better, we will be able to make smarter pricing decisions to impact top line revenue and more effectively evaluate how we are managing our costs. Under the gut feeling model of decision making, we may know that we are going to sellout next Tuesday and Wednesday, but under the Big Data model of decision making, we may see that Wednesday's sellout is driven by stayovers from Tuesday and not a new set of arrivals. With this observation in mind, the general manager may elect to scale back on front desk coverage since there are fewer check-ins and reduce IN MYOPINION
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