Big Data works for Airbnb but hoteliers have yet to reap the benefits

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Platforms such as Airbnb and Uber allow owners to choose their clients, something that hotels and taxi drivers have not yet achieved, but that technology can allow in the not-too-distant future, mainly in part to Big Data that analyzes the behavior of users.

Consumers who use the Airbnb and Uber applications also receive ratings from their hosting or transport providers, as a way to prevent unwanted behaviors that result in much higher costs of the service.

In the future, the technology is expected to allow not only the choice of the customer, but also that the price can be adapted according to the behavior forecast that the user has based on several variables based on their previous actions.

This concept is denominated as price discrimination, and is part of the macro-trend of personalizing the traveler's entire shopping cycle, in which the rate will be closer to the historical context and to the different disposition of spending by that product

Big Data will enable the development of this phenomenon, since patterns can be evaluated for example on whether a search is recurrent, or on whether it has made a comparison between several websites of the same product, thanks to the browsing history or the IP address.

Also, the behavior in social networks and the history of claims may influence when determining the price, in a way that hoteliers can reward the most civic travelers and cover the most fussy and tormented.

Until now, hoteliers have had to face being scrutinized to the millimeter by their guests in both Tripadvisor and Booking, but many times in the first through blackmail to the power that has achieved that platform.

Also, establishments have suffered attacks and sometimes extortions under threats of negative publications on social networks like Instagram or Facebook, while self-styled influencers have dedicated themselves to writing massively asking for free services.

Thus, to date, this trial has been unidirectional for hoteliers, and not for homeowners who rent them for nights as if it were a hotel through the aforementioned platforms such as Airbnb, but in the future the new tools will make possible a more equitable treatment between client and supplier.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Join us November 12-15 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Madrid 2019.