Big data. We’ve all heard and talked about it. Big data is a major component of every industry and hospitality is not an exception. Knowing how to recognize and utilize big data to your company’s advantage unlocks great amounts of power. However, having access to data is one thing, but to maximize big data, it needs to be actionable and clearly defined in a detailed data strategy.

Take children for example - we all have been a child and many of us have raised one. Let's use a metaphor of a child playing in a room and when you arrive, it’s a complete mess with toys, books, and clothing everywhere.You immediately start thinking of how to clean up the mess into an organized state. This is how many of today’s data points look if they’re not structured properly and well managed. Without organization of any form, big data is one gigantic room with data points scattered around and thrown everywhere - it’s a big data problem and it's time to clean up.

Data is everywhere. In our computers, in our phones, in the cloud, and virtually every kind of system or software that records information. Let’s just say there is a lot of data out there. Once you have all of your data, what next? We’ve talked about data platforms and their value to the hospitality industry, but there is still one important key factor that is crucial to gaining all advantages from a data platform’s ability to analyze and visualize, which lies in business intelligence.

With massive amounts of data now available to hotels, it’s safe to say that all future technologies will rely on data and integrations. The need for an independent system to collect and connect all existing data for hotels has become inevitable. Enter the data platform, but what does that mean and how does it work for hotels?