The Travel and Leisure industry has experienced a sea of change over last few years and travelers have evolved and transformed to explore more of the world. Travel is emotional and personal as many anticipate heavily what is often 3 or less vacations per year and for some it is probably a dream to make their first international travel or their very first flight.
Technology has helped travelers of today research, plan, book and most personally share experiences on the fly using Instagram, Facebook and Twitter whether they are senior citizens looking to enjoy their retirement, millennial out to explore the new world, or family wanting to take a break to spend quality time together. Most travelers have moved away from the travel agent and do their travel research and booking through digital channels.
This is both a huge challenge as well as an opportunity for the travel providers, as travelers probably are better informed with the various options that they can find at their finger tips and they match it up with where they are planning to travel. The opportunity is rooted in the enormous “big data” travelers generate during their research, booking, actual travel-time via social media and post travel via travel forums. It is important that hospitality providers leverage this data to foster deeper understanding of the travelers profile, needs and motivations, to better meet what they are seeking.
Push – Pull framework
An interesting and highly researched framework in the hospitality and travel industry is called as the Push – Pull framework. This handbook written by researchers highlights how the push – pull framework helps in identifying the decision making criteria for travelers. Push factors are the motivations and needs of the travelers and pull factors are the attributes of the destinations. So essentially a risk-seeking adventurer is more likely to consider a hiking trip or trying out a more adventurous and out-of-the-way destination.
Leveraging Push – Pull framework for 1x1 Passenger Engagement
As part of the customer innovations at SAP Labs we have developed a pilot solution that can leverage this Push – Pull framework to derive deep insights of travelers based on their profile/interactions that they leave through their omni-channel interactions across web, social, mobile and booking . This pilot solution developed in SAP HANA, allows marketers to do mass personalization and provide very contextual recommendations of destination based on what travelers are seeking through machine learning models. It provides marketers the feel of the push pull factors that helped derive the recommendations.
Marketers can further filter the target customers based on their demographic profile, travel spends as well as their loyalty status, to find the right target travelers they can focus their marketing spends on.
No longer a standard email campaign or basic One fits all campaign is helpful. More contextual 1x1 marketing is the need of the day. This pilot solution helps marketers to find the right offers for the right travelers through this push pull framework as well as visualizing the passenger journey across their omni- channel.
Mobile is key channel that travelers engage these days, and as it is no more face to face with travel agent, travellers need to get right information at right time. As part of this pilot solutions, travelers could instantly get offers in their mobile phones.
The solution combines the power of machine learning, big data, mobile and cloud to foster great industry best practices and competitive advantages.
Let me know if you are interested in taking a look at this pilot solution or if you have questions
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