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ABTA 2014: Travel firms urged not to waste millions on IT
Travel firms no longer need to spend millions of pounds on technology to access and analyse customer data, PwC partner Matthew Tod told the Travel Convention.
Instead, he advised small companies to take a look at Amazon Redshift, which offers a cost-effective data analysis service, starting from $999. For that price, companies can store one terabyte of data, enough to store the 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
"Don’t go out and spend millions on the best technology," he said, "it’s better to spend little and often.
"Google Analytics is brilliant and it’s free."
However, Tod said the most important factor was linking all the information gathered about each customer to avoid wasting money marketing the wrong products to the wrong people.
He gave the example of a sailing operator, with whom he had booked several trips, emailing him information about learn-to-sail weeks, and a hotel where in Canada where he’s stayed subsequently ‘stalking’ him around the internet.
"They send me emails inviting me to rebook, but they are pissing away money by not joining together two incredibly simple sets of data – I stayed there, I’m from the UK, people from the UK don’t go back to Canada 3 weeks later."
However, Tod warned that the industry could be adversely affected by a consumer’s ‘right to erasure’ which could be introduced as part of a reform of the European General Data Protection Regulation next spring.
This would mean that companies would have to delete all information they have gleaned about customers, if requested to do so.
"The law is going to change to make it harder for companies to do surveillance on their customers so you have to give customers reason to opt in. There has to be something in it for them,"
Tod said that instead of using data to market to customers, companies need to think about using the data to take care of them.
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Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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