Properties generate thousands of data points every day: booking patterns, guest preferences, pricing competitors' moves, seasonal trends and revenue fluctuations. Yet many accommodation managers and owners are sitting on a goldmine of insights whilst making crucial decisions based on last year's performance and educated guesswork.
The hospitality landscape has shifted dramatically. Today's guests research extensively, compare relentlessly, and expect experiences tailored to their preferences. Meanwhile, new competitors emerge monthly, from boutique independents to innovative accommodation concepts. In this environment, the traditional approach of combining experience with manual spreadsheet analysis simply cannot keep pace. Your guests are already using data to choose you – why wouldn’t you be using data to serve them better?
Read on to discover how data analytics works and how you can leverage it to transform your property's performance.
Data analytics is the process of examining collected information to discover useful patterns. It's like having a conversation with your numbers: asking questions and getting answers that help you understand what's happening in your business.
Data analytics in the hospitality industry means looking at guest preferences, seasonal trends, and booking behaviours to make profitable decisions. Your guests tell you what they want through their actions – when they book, what they spend, and how they respond to your services.
This information comes from various sources, such as booking systems, payment processors, review platforms and guest feedback. Data analytics connects these dots to reveal which room categories drive your highest margins, helps you anticipate demand surges, and shows you what influences guest satisfaction.
Hotels operate with perishable inventory. If a room isn't sold tonight, it can't be sold tomorrow. That money is lost. This makes every decision regarding pricing and operations especially important.
Data-informed decisions help you to:
Improve revenue management: The data reveals the real connection between your prices and bookings. These analytics help you find the right balance between filling rooms and making a profit. For example, data can predict demand by indicating a rise in interest for an upcoming conference. This allows you to adjust your rates months in advance, maximising earnings for each room.
Understand customer behaviour: Instead of assuming what guests want, analytics shows what they do. Look at their booking history, spending habits and guest engagement data to focus on improvements that matter. By reviewing this figure, you might notice that guests in the most expensive rooms use the spa the most. This lets you create a personalised "Wellness Weekend" package for them. It will enhance their experience and increase the chances they will return.
Optimise your operations: Get detailed insights on where you're spending too much time, money or resources. The data from your PMS might show that weekend check-outs are usually two hours later than those during the week. It makes sense to adjust housekeeping schedules. This change improves efficiency and cuts down on labour costs.
Stay competitive: Making decisions based on real-time data enables you to adapt to changes faster and gain a competitive advantage. By examining what other companies charge, their position in the market, and feedback from their customers, you can improve your business strategies and stay ahead of them.
Every day, your property collects booking records, operational metrics and financial data. Summarising this information can help you to make better decisions about pricing, staffing and operations.
Here are eight areas where data can have the greatest impact:
Data analysis uncovers profitable guest segments that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, those who book spa services could often extend their stay by an extra night, and business travellers from specific locations might frequently choose particular room types.
This information helps you upsell and create better offers for each guest. Think of suggesting dining options based on what they ordered last time. These small touches make guests happier and more likely to come back.
Online marketing plays a crucial role in how guests discover and book hotels. The data you collect from your marketing campaigns gives you valuable insights into guest behaviour and preferences.
Analytics helps to identify which marketing channels bring in the most valuable guests and allows you to track the performance of your hotel marketing strategy overall. For example, how many people visit your website after seeing a Facebook ad? What percentage of those check room prices and finally make a booking? This shows you which marketing efforts truly work, not just which ones get attention.
Use these insights to launch more targeted campaigns. For instance, instead of sending the same promotional email to every guest, create customised email marketing campaigns based on guest data. Your data could show that Tuesday afternoon newsletters work better for business travellers, while weekend emails get more responses from adventure tourists. Some accommodations find that their most loyal guests prefer text messages to emails, or that certain age groups respond better to social media posts than to Google ads.
Analytics can reveal hidden tendencies that aren't obvious from daily operations. Guest spending data shows which amenities generate profit versus those that just cost money to maintain. Many properties discover that their spa bookings correlate with specific room types, or that guests from certain booking channels never use paid services.
Revenue management becomes more precise when patterns emerge across seasons and events. Properties often find that their assumed "peak periods" aren't necessarily the most profitable days. Weekend rates might be high, but midweek business travellers could spend more on food, drinks and services.
Booking behaviour analysis shows when guests are most likely to cancel or modify reservations. This helps with overbooking strategies and identifying which guest segments provide the most reliable revenue. Some properties discover that last-minute bookings from certain channels have much higher cancellation rates than expected.
Data analytics in the hospitality industry can help you optimise your daily operations by revealing trends across all departments, which helps you plan resources more effectively.
Rather than reading individual reviews and trying to identify recurring themes, analytics allows you to analyse feedback from hundreds of guests simultaneously. Combine comments from TripAdvisor, Google, booking sites and your surveys to gain a comprehensive overview.
Data analysis highlights important points that human reading often misses. For example, you discover that guests frequently mention Wi-Fi issues in specific rooms, or that mentions of staff friendliness correlate with higher spending on services. This helps you focus your improvements on areas that will make guests happier and increase your revenue.
Equipment breakdowns can quickly ruin a guest's experience, but catching issues early lets you take preventive action. Monitor how your equipment operates over time instead of waiting for it to break.
Monitor heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, elevators and kitchen equipment to spot warning signs before failures occur. This allows you to identify potential issues weeks before they affect guests. This proactive approach cuts down on complaints and improves the overall customer experience.
Predict what you'll need and when by using data on bookings, local events and seasonal changes to forecast demand accurately.
Different guest types have distinct consumption habits that affect your inventory needs. Business travellers typically consume more coffee and high-end drinks, while families with children will need more snacks and use more pool towels. Conference groups prefer quick breakfast options, whereas holidaymakers enjoy more leisurely dining experiences.
The food and beverage services offered at your property can also provide insights into your guests' spending habits. Spa guests may prefer lighter, healthier options, while business travellers want quick and consistent meals.
Data analytics can help you identify the most profitable menu items and promote them more effectively. Data may show that certain dishes increase overall spending, or that guests staying for several nights are more likely to order premium meals. This enables you to optimise both menu positioning and pricing strategies.
While analytics can be beneficial for your business, there may be some challenges to overcome. Here's what to expect and how to overcome them.
If the various platforms you use are not compatible with each other, it can be hard to understand the complete picture. Perhaps your guest preferences are stored in your property management system, but restaurant software has no access to this information. Meanwhile, your housekeeping schedules exist in a different system entirely, and your marketing platform operates with its separate guest database. This fragmentation means you're constantly switching between different systems to understand what's happening in your hotel. Without integrated systems, you're essentially running several separate businesses under one roof, each with its incomplete view of your guests.
While your staff is doing great in their jobs, they may not be comfortable with smart technology. This can create resistance to new systems and limit the effectiveness of analytics solutions. Even tech-savvy staff members may find it challenging to interpret data visualisations or grasp statistical concepts. Without proper training, expensive analytics tools often end up being underused or ignored entirely.
The reliability of analytics results depends on the quality of the information going into your systems. If the data is inaccurate, that can lead to misleading insights and costly business decisions. Common problems are inconsistencies in data entry across staff members and departments. For example, one person might record a guest's nationality as 'UK', while another might use 'United Kingdom' or 'Britain'. When staff are busy, they often take shortcuts, rather than entering accurate details.
Historical data can cause additional complications. Your property management system may contain years of information entered according to different standards. Guest contact information becomes outdated, payment methods change, and preference data grows stale. Without regular data cleaning and standardisation, your analytics tools may be providing inaccurate recommendations. This can lead to unreliable insights about guest behaviour and business performance.
The more you learn about your guests, the more responsibility you have to protect their information. Privacy laws vary from country to country, so if you host international guests, you need to comply with the rules of multiple countries.
If you're new to using data analytics in your property, don't implement everything at once. Here's how to begin without overwhelming yourself or your team.
Start with what you already have: Your property management system probably has basic reporting features you're not using yet. Look at simple reports like how often people book, how long they typically stay, and what room types they prefer. This information alone can help you set better prices and focus your marketing efforts.
Focus on pricing first: Dynamic pricing is one of the easiest ways to see real results from data. It automatically adjusts your rates based on demand, competitor prices, and booking patterns. Even basic tools that watch your competitors' rates and suggest price changes can boost your revenue quickly. This gives you a win early on and helps justify investing more in analytics.
Get your team on board: Your success depends on having staff who understand both great customer service and basic data collection. Train your current team or hire someone with analytics experience. Either way, make sure everyone knows why this matters and how it helps guests.
Keep your data clean: Set up simple rules for how information gets entered into your systems. Make sure someone checks the data regularly and fixes any problems. Bad data leads to bad decisions, so this step is crucial.
Look for tools that work together: When you're ready to add new systems, choose ones that connect easily with what you already have. This saves time and prevents the headache of managing multiple separate systems.Data analytics in the hospitality industry helps you run your operations more smoothly. It isn't just for big chains; all properties can benefit from it regardless of the size or concept. Data will help you anticipate what guests need, but your team will still be the ones who deliver that warm, personal experience that keeps people coming back.
Start simple. Focus on one area at a time, and build your confidence as you go. Lay the foundation of data analytics with a property management system that brings everything together.
SabeeApp Property Management Software handles your daily operations while keeping all your information in one place, and our Channel Manager ensures your pricing and availability stay synchronised across all booking platforms.
Ready to see how it works for your property? Get in touch for a free demo.