Maria Yakushkina, Head of Travelport's Representative Office in Russia and the CIS, shared her opinion with TRN readers on how data helps reimagine the travel experience and provides a competitive advantage for travel agencies:
"Preference Analysis The growth of travelers will revolutionize the travel industry. Once we understand customers' changing needs and create customized offers and marketing plans, the current return-on-trip (travel profitability) success metric will become a thing of the past. Instead, the return-on-customer (ROC) model will become relevant, with the core idea of maintaining and retaining customer loyalty throughout the entire trip.
Online travel agencies face a challenging task: to win online, they must demonstrate their value to customers and provide personalized interactions. Building such a model is only possible with accurate and up-to-date data. With all the necessary data processing capabilities, Travelport can collect information at every stage of the traveler lifecycle and provide relevant, personalized services tailored to each individual's needs and desires. This data will take customer engagement to the next level and drive business growth.
1. Inspire customers from the first search query
Analyzing key industry trends, web data, and purchase history allows us to create offers that inspire and engage customers from the very first search query. We can also deliver personalized offers precisely when they're most likely to book—usually approximately 80 days before their trip. Engaging with initially interested customers will lead to reduced advertising costs on Google and other channels. Working with data also helps you choose the right time to launch individual offers and advertising campaigns overall, which will reduce your business's overall customer acquisition costs.
2. Improve the shopping experience by making offers more relevant
To improve the online shopping experience, it's essential to engage with travelers personally and use a personalized approach. Through in-depth, personalized analysis, each customer can be offered content tailored to their needs, covering flights, hotels, cars, and much more. In addition to increasing conversion, this approach allows travelers to choose from the most relevant offers. This eliminates friction during the purchasing process, saves time, improves traveler convenience, and ultimately helps agencies build customer loyalty.
3. Increase your bookings by optimizing your prices (bestpriceproposals)
By basing your pricing policy on industry-wide data analysis, you can create the best value offers for your clients. This will build trust and confidence in the quality of the services you receive. Analyzing market pricing dynamics over similar periods allows you to forecast price trends. This allows clients to determine whether to wait for a price reduction, buy now, or follow advice. By becoming a trusted advisor to your clients and saving them money, your agency can build strong, trusting relationships that will last for years.
4. Increase profits through pre-trip engagement
Travelport research has shown that travelers who receive just one pre-trip marketing offer generate approximately half a billion dollars for agencies each month. This market segment is worth $6 billion annually, but its potential remains untapped. To maximize profits from these customers, it's crucial to launch engaging pre-trip marketing campaigns that include relevant offers right up until departure.
5. Create and improve traveler experiences
With the right data, strategy, and partner, you can help your customers have the best travel experience possible. This effectively unlocks another chunk of travelers' vacation budgets, which currently average over $5,000. Options include recommending local events, entertainment, and even restaurants that best suit your needs and preferences. This approach improves your travel experience and unlocks new revenue streams by collecting data on your travel choices. This will ultimately improve the quality of your offerings in the future.
6. Build profitable customer relationships that last a lifetime
Streaming video services like Netflix show us what we should watch next. Amazon recommends what to buy. Spotify suggests what we might listen to next. They can do this because they use data to analyze our interests and see the preferences of people with similar consumption profiles. Today, we can do the same with travel. By understanding customer profiles and travel intent, gaining insights into what works and what doesn't, we can make the travel industry more intelligent, inspiring, engaging, and engaging our customers.
The key to implementing this approach is engaging with customers after their trip. This allows us to gather detailed feedback on their search, booking, trip preparation, and travel experience. Based on this feedback and a range of other insights, we can create a precise customer profile that will help companies' offerings remain relevant even as travelers' personal circumstances and travel needs change.
Source: trn-news.ru
