Are You Being Watched?

For those of you who are more than a bit paranoid about being watched on the internet, this company and their statics are about to make you grab for your tinfoil hats.  While you may not have heard of Crimson Hexagon they have probably heard of you, sort of.  They are a Boston based analytics firm that has collected, stored and indexed more than 1 trillion public Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram posts since it started in 2008.  While it may sound kind of creepy to the average eye it is actually an amazing resource for companies. 

Crimson Hexagon has customers ranging from major tech companies to asset management firms to government agencies.  How it works is they compile their data on what conversations are trending on social media.  You see, data isn’t all numbers, it comes in the form of words as well.  They analyze conversations on social media to help advise these companies.  These companies can see if their marketing campaign is being spoken about in a positive or negative way, or if it is being talked about at all.  They’ve helped with predicting stock markets by being able to provide data on what people are saying about a company’s earnings on social to then help predict how that stock will perform.  Stephanie Newby, Crimson Hexagon’s CEO, told MarketsInsider that “Social media analytics is increasingly important because now people are asking more strategic questions” other than how many followers, such as “Do customers really care that this product has been recalled and will it stop them from purchasing the next one?”

While this can be unbelievably useful for companies, I would still go check those privacy settings…

Artificial Intelligence Leads to New Tech in Travel

In my last post, I discussed the growing use of big data in the travel industry.  With the growing need and seeing the future of travel in personalization, what amazing technology has come out of that?  I’m glad you asked… between artificial intelligence (A.I.) its subfield of Natural Language Processing and some creative minds, the travel industry has seen some great tech come about, starting with chat-bots.  You can now explore where you want to go on your next vacation in Facebook Messenger by engaging in company’s chat bot technologies.  You can even book a trip straight from Facebook Messenger by communication with KAYAK, Expedia, SkyScanner, Cheapflights and the list goes on.  Airlines have created virtual travel agents in the form of chat bots that use A.I. to assist with traveler’s needs.  As it has been noted previously, by many people, millennials interact with and get information in very different ways than the generations before them.  Travel companies using A.I. to come up with chat bots is their answers to millennials who would rather interact by text message than say picking up a phone, or who are accustomed to asking Siri for directions than looking at a map.  We should anticipate AI having a huge impact and revolution on the way we book our travel in the future.  You can see an extensive lists of travel chat bots you can start utilizing here.

Around the World with Big Data

Big Data and the Future of the Travel Industry

photo cred: frosch insider

Millennials are all about experiences.  They are not as concerned as the generation before them with building wealth through owning multiple homes and staying with companies for 20 years.  It is more normal for them to take a year off of work to go travel and see the world.  With that, and the internet making us a much smaller world, the travel industry is a massive industry and continuously growing.  It is expected to grow to 10% of the entire Global GDP by 2022, or an annual revenue of around $10 trillion.  An industry of this size will only benefit and become more efficient with the use of big data.  A traveler leaves behind a massive amount of data for companies to leverage.  Everything from your location, flight path, hotel rating preference, to how you move your mouse when on a travel site.  And travel companies are no stranger to storing this data.  Hotels, airlines, online travel agencies, airports etc. are all getting on board with the gigantic advantage that big data will bring to the future of their industry.

The first and possibly most important aspect that big data will bring to the travel industry is the ability for personalization in the passenger journey.  Wouldn’t it be great to log on to your favorite travel site and not have to tell it every time that you won’t stay in a hotel that is less than 4 stars?  Or that you’re a millennial going backpacking so budget friendly is always your preference.  With the use of big data companies can enhance the customer experience by making it more focused around each traveler’s personal preference.  Big data is not just to profile the traveler but to have true personalization – recommend a specific hotel to a specific traveler based on their specific wants, need and purchase patterns as opposed to generic recommendations based on the type of traveler.  Personalization is huge in travel because it is not just a transaction or a purchase travel is an experience and an emotional one that makes the ability to personalize that journey the most important aspect in the future of travel because it will lead to higher conversions and better customer retention.

While personalization and enhancing the consumer experience is great for the customer it is also great for the business.  However, because the traveler leaves behind so much data and in so many different spots the next step for companies is to be able to consolidate all that data to make is useful.  With the use of big data travel companies will be able to do that and will have a much better insight when to serve their content and to who.  An example to sum up the above, if a customer searches for a vacation on an online travel agency and leaves the site to go to Facebook and posts a status that says “I hate the snow” well that online travel agency could use their data (if able to consolidate it) to show not to serve a ski vacation ad to that traveler. 

Companies know that big data is the future for their travel organizations and have started to heavily invest it in. The airline, JetBlue has started a subsidiary called JetBlue Technology Ventures that is going to partner with all different types of up-and-coming tech minds throughout the country and be based out of silicon valley to with the aim of serving as a launch pad for innovations that improve customer and crew experiences and increase the airline’s operational efficiency. TravelClick’s Business Intelligence tool, Demand360, is growing internationally and has just signed 8 more major international hotel brands to share their future and historic data.

Big data is absolutely the future of travel, for the traveler and the companies.  Through personalization and abilities to predict future demand, big data leaves the consumer and the company in a win-win situation.