Structural Changes in the German Travel Market – Part 5: Data

Against the background of the advanced interaction with data of the Big Five (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple), there is an urgent need for action in the travel industry as well as other industries.

Thesis: In the future, data will determine success or failure

Customer-oriented provision of services and relevance of tailor-made offers of providers such as Amazon or Google have set a high standard related to easier, faster, and customized consultation and booking processes as well as relevant search results.

Thinly spreading offers among customers or providing various additional offers during the purchasing process will no longer succeed in the future. Instead, customers demand relevant offers tailored to their individual needs and desires including a display of relevant core services and additional offers.

This development provides enterprises the opportunity of focusing on long-term customer loyalty and highlighting the USP of their service offers. More extensive, undifferentiated service offers enable the display of alternatives to customers, which can positively impact the customer relationship’s enhancement.

Challenging is generally the necessary quantity and quality of relevant data. Tourism providers partly dispose of large quantities of customer information, however, often the majority of information is fragmented and not available throughout the complete customer journey. According to some experts, one solution to meet this challenge within the tourism industry may be a joint data platform (in consideration of the European data protection regulations). The objective of this data platform would be the one-time registration and storing of customers’ data, information and requirements in the system and the subsequent benefit for all participating enterprises, while giving customers the decision-making authority over the use of their data.

The approach of a joint data platform can only succeed by maintaining full transparency towards the customers and through the cooperation of two or three big ones of the industry. Animosities between the value creation stages must be overcome both on horizontal and vertical levels.

Result:

Cooperative data management provides the German tourism industry the opportunity of succeeding in a world of customer focus and Big Data.