“Big Data”... it’s a small term that makes a big impact on hundreds of companies’ bottom line and on nearly every industry you can name. We've all heard the term, though not all of us claim to know what it is. I personally feel that “Big Data” is becoming a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot like the word “expert” or say “Growth Hacker” these days. So to set you straight, in this article you will learn once and for all what Big Data is, if it’s even supposed to be capitalized, and how it will finally revolutionize the travel industry once and for all.
By definition Big Data means any collection of data sets so large and complex that they become difficult to process using traditional data processing applications.* What this means to laypersons is that Big Data is the art of using machines to sort through giant piles of information that we couldn’t otherwise analyze ourselves. Got it now? This relatively new frontier in technology has revolutionized literally every industry from software to national security, yet no one company has truly tapped into how using Big Data could revolutionize the way we travel, until recently.
How pathetic is it that we book our travel in pretty much the same way we did in 1998? We search online through many websites to find the best deal, then we cross-reference our choice across multiple review sites and start over if we don’t like what we see. That’s no fun, and if you’re a frequent traveler it’s a huge headache. If you actually look at the Hotels.com’s homepage in 2005 (below), the website looked exactly the same as hotel websites look today. It’s sad that it’s not even outdated in 2014.
So, there are two main types of data, structured and unstructured; what Big Data companies do is try to utilize both sets to improve the lives of their customers. Structured Data is kind of self-explanatory, it’s data that’s organized and categorized in a manageable way. Unstructured data however, is information that doesn’t have a pre-defined model...and is kind of just floating around the world without purpose or plan. For example, the NSA use very big data sets of email, video chat, photos and more to determine who is a national threat and who’s a normal chitchatter. OLSET, where I work, is trying to revolutionize how we all book travel by doing this, in a much less shady way.
At OLSET, we extrapolate structured data in the form of users’ previous booking information and organize it to automatically create a profile for travelers that we can match hotels against. We then grab unstructured data from all over the web in the form of social posts/comments related to hotels/travel and millions of traveler review sentiments. Need to be sure that the wifi is great? We’ve got you covered. Need a hotel with a good business center, a good gym and free parking? No problem! We feed all that data into an algorithm that ranks hotels based on percentage match to the user’s exact preferences saving them the hassle of having to do the heavy lifting themselves.
Cool huh? We think so too, and we’ve even started powering smart hotel booking on a host of partners websites and apps. Big Data has allowed OLSET to cut down hotel booking times from an average of 1 hour to under 10 seconds.**** OLSET is quickly changing the travel game and becoming the online personal travel assistant of the future, analyzing historical data and matching hotels and reviews to users’ exact preferences. We believe this is the future of all search, not just travel booking. Applications will begin to do more of the heavy lifting for users and learn more about us as we use them. Why not give Big Data a try today yourself? Go to www.OLSET.com and sign up for free to begin creating your traveler profile and see what hotels OLSET recommends for your next trip. Oh, and you should always capitalize Big Data because Wikipedia says so!
About the author: Andrew Lee Miller is the Marketing Director of OLSET and has worked with different startups around the world for the past 7+ years. After obtaining an International Business degree from BGSU Andrew moved to Mexico where he set up the Online Marketing department for what is now Mexico’s largest tourism conglomerate. Most recently though, he was Head of Marketing for the Middle East's largest classifieds site, which was acquired in 2010 and after, a major ecommerce site that was acquired by LivingSocial. Andrew loves all aspects of marketing early stage startups and arguing about growth strategies.
- * Source: Wikipedia
- **Source: The Wayback Machine
- ***Source: U.S Travel Association
- ****Source: Internal user testing and surveys