WANTED: Savvy data cruncher to analyze copious amounts of information related to guest behavior, sales opportunities and revenue results. Previous hospitality experience not necessary.
Hotels no longer wonder if they should be collecting various points of data regarding rates, occupancy, revenue and guest behavior. Nor do they wonder about what to do with all this data, which is to put it through intense analysis and then create?solutions to the problems or opportunities the data reveals.
But what they do need to consider is this: Who is most?qualified to comb through all that data? Is it the revenue manager with 20 years’ experience — or the kid fresh out of college with a minor in data science?
Nancy Pyron, a hospitality consultant with a focus on?business analytics, says it’s a little bit of both.
“There are a range of skills required in the fields of data science that include not just the ability to understand how to analyze the data, but the ability to understand the business logic surrounding the data being analyzed,” explains Pyron, former senior director of operations research and revenue management at Marriott International.
Pyron cites an internship program at both Starwood and Marriott in which candidates were recruited from universities to handle analytical tasks. But sometimes the results generated didn’t make the most business sense, she says. So her team sought out employees with diverse industry experience coupled with core math and statistics educations.
“This combination of background and skill levels enabled the analytics team to generate more robust, reasonable and credible analytics results to present to the business teams such as revenue management, group sales and marketing,” she says.
Looking outside hotels
Calvin Anderson, chief of revenue?optimization at RLH Corp., Denver, often hires data science candidates from outside the hospitality world to complement current team members.
“If you’re used to seeing (data) and working with it, you can learn the lodging practice because the economics are the same,” he says. “The skill set I care less about is travel experience, but only so long as other people on the team have it.” The company’s recent hires have been business intelligence managers from telecommunications companies as well as a few straight out of college.
While most hotel operations rely on third-party software and systems for data analysis, Geoff Andrew, CEO of WorldHotels, a collection of independent luxury hotels, says his Frankfurt-based company does it all on its own.
“We have trained experts in SQL (Structured Query Language) and do not rely on third-party systems,” he notes. His company also has a training department that offers courses focused on driving revenue to its hotels. “This includes interpreting internal and external data relating to global production and equipping our teams and hotel members with information needed to make smart decisions on product and pricing,” he says.
Yet actual work experience still goes a long way. Sebastien Silvitre, CEO of the Disruptive Group, a division of SBE, has a degree in hotel management and says his curriculum focused on data science and data analytics. However, for him, the most important training has been learned on the job.
“Most of the decisions today are backed up with analytics to avoid surprises,” he says. “We have access to so much data from revenue management to customer behaviors, product mix, mini-bar consumptions, room choice, price sensitivity, etc. We make recommendations based on analytics, for sure, and sometimes it’s a combination of what the data tells us, how the market performs, benchmarking and also our business sense.”
Data overload
Nearly everyone agrees, however, that there’s an overload of data, so much so that Anderson feels it’s created a “total cultural change” within hotel companies.
“Getting not only experts on board has been very difficult, but also getting the non-experts on board has been tough,” he says. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not easy. And it’s not easy because no one has the time to learn a new skill set.” But they must learn it, he adds.
WorldHotels’ Andrew says careful analysis is needed to create sensible business conclusions, “otherwise you can drown in (data).” He also points out that familiarity with data science can be useful in all hotel divisions, not just revenue management.
“Having employees who are digitally savvy individuals who are able to understand guests’ patterns, look at data and draw sensible business conclusions will be a competitive imperative,” he says. “An appreciation of data science will become more of a focus across all disciplines in the hotel industry, not just a unique center of excellence.”