New Delhi, June 28, 2017: The Hotel Times: What relevance does big data hold in the hotel industry?
Vikram Rao: Every hotel is a gateway to a city. The experience of a city is intrinsically linked to the experience a guest has at the hotel they choose. Being in the services industry, it is imperative that hotels understand their customers’ preferences. Big data technology companies like Crayon Data, can provide hotels with the ability to provide highly personalized and curated options and services to their customers.
The Hotel Times: How can hotels use data analytics to serve customer better?
Vikram Rao:  Dynamic pricing at hotels is closely linked to traveller traffic patterns in a city. If hotels equip themselves with the right technology/analytics partners, they can unearth patterns and insights from how and what choices travellers make. And use that data, to customise experiences and offers of relevance for their guests, leading to greater customer engagement and satisfaction.
The Hotel Times: How does Maya help the hotels?
Vikram Rao:  Personalisation is the future of customer engagement. Crayon’s Maya enables data-led personalisation, right across a guest’s journey. From the time of check-in to post check-out, Maya captures preferences and suggests value based services based on guest profiles. Maya improves personalisation with previous and current behaviour knowledge, which results in highly relevant conversations between the hotel and their guests. Hotels can tailor their offers to guests’ tastes and preferences too. Maya also makes profile-based conversions to direct channels of booking, possible.
The Hotel Times: Can you share a case study where Maya has helped a particular hotel?
Vikram Rao: A leading UK based hospitality brand gained, $87 increase in revenue per booking, 18% conversion to direct bookings (from indirect channels), 16% increase in additional bookings per guest from repeat visits.
The Hotel Times: What partnerships do you have in place to reach out to the hotel clients?
Vikram Rao: Crayon has been selected to be part of Amadeus’ Asia Pacific travel technology startup community called Amadeus Next. Crayon, with its growing presence in various geographies, will benefit from Amadeus’ global reach. This will allow Crayon Data to expand its services to a global audience.