Today hotels don’t just need more data on how consumers shop them, they also need the ability to turn that new understanding into action. nSight, a provider of travel intelligence from third-party websites, transforms travel’s online big data into big value for hotels by making it actionable. That means making data usable and digestible in daily hotel revenue management and marketing activities.
Today nSight is rolling out enhancements to its hotel product that provide insights and tools for optimizing rate, managing future demand and targeting “the right” consumers that help hotels convert shoppers to grow market share.
nSight aggregates data from more than 80 million consumer “looks and books” every day from a network of 5,000 third-party travel sites. Now hotels can achieve a more complete understanding of shopping behavior, preferences and future demand against the competition. This insight is a critical complement to the current tools that hotels use, providing a unique competitive advantage in today’s complex, changing distribution landscape.
nSight is an interactive SaaS-based BI application that benchmarks hotel performance on third-party websites worldwide for the past year or up to 90 days into the future. Hotels can deep dive into top source markets and consumer profiles, dates when the property is under- or over-performing, and also see the difference in best available rate (BAR) versus the competition by day and how that affects share of search and bookings.
“Leisure and unmanaged business travel can account for 50% or more of a hotel’s revenue. For many hotels, almost half of the bookings from these valuable customer segments can come through third parties, which include OTAs, tour operators, airlines, clubs and retailers. Understanding how consumers shop and book across these channels is key to maximizing profit and minimizing soft periods,” said nSight Founder Rich Maradik.
nSight enhancements that provide decision-making insight for hotel revenue managers and marketers include:
- Rate Efficiency Index – The Rate Efficiency Index (REI) allows hotels to see the impact of their rate compared to their competitors on search and booking performance.REI is the only way revenue managers and marketers can see the affect of BAR rate on how consumers search and book by future arrival days.
- Forward-Looking Demand – Hotels can now see search and booking performance on travel dates up to 90 days into the future within nSIght’s interactive dashboard. Subscribers can also drill into nSight data to understand the profile of consumers most likely to search and book them in the next 30, 60 or 90 days.
- ·nCompass BI Reporting – Introduced as part of the nSight subscription, nCompass is a forward-looking report that provides a simple color-coded calendar view of demand and bookings for the next 30 days and 60 days and where to target active consumers online. nCompass tells a hotel where to go to fill demand gaps by identifying geographic markets and personas likely to book within specific 30- and 60-day need periods. It’s a suggested roadmap for digital media and email marketing for two months into the future.
“Hoteliers want to visualize the next 60 days. nCompass lets them see when rate and conversion are on pace, so they know what days are under- or over- performing,” said nSight President and Chief Product Officer Jami Timmons. “And we put insight into action by making the report easy to interpret with red-yellow-green color-coding that prioritizes dates that need attention first.”
Ways to take action
nSight is a unique travel intelligence solution that allows hotel revenue management and marketing teams to quickly and easily take action on consumer insights. These are examples of how hotels can use nSight data to make daily operational decisions:
- Raise or lower rates for future arrival periods based on the hotel’s share of consumer “looks and books” against its competitive set during future arrival days
- Design digital marketing campaigns based on average lead times for active shoppers within 30- or 60-day windows; easily integrate target marketing recommendations with leading OTAs and digital networks
- Refine strategies with Google AdWords campaigns based on consumer demographics and geographies identified as most likely to convert in select periods
- Apply geographic source market and consumer profile insights on email marketing campaigns to increase loyal guest stays
- Customize web and social content based on target consumer profile insights
- Be more strategic with wholesaler and consortia partners for select arrival periods
A Take Action webinar
nSight will host a webinar demonstrating specifically how to take action with nSight data to improve PPC campaigns. Sessions run on September 16, 18, 30 and October 2. To learn more and to register, go to the nSight events page.
