How good data goes bad

Understand market forces before acting on data.

Managing a trove of business travel data is like managing a brilliant 5-year-old. There’s plenty of potential, but without the right discipline, things can veer way off track.

BCD Travel’s latest white paper, Get Engaged: Empowering Travelers to Make Smart Buying Choices, explores new data collection techniques that give travel managers an unprecedented view into their travelers’ behaviors. That information can be transformed into previously untapped savings, even for mature travel programs. But having the data isn’t enough. You have to manage it wisely, incorporating market knowledge and industry experience into the analytical process. This discipline is especially important when you’re trying to change traveler behavior.

Get Engaged offers a case in point: the contrast between advance air bookings in the U.S. and China. BCD customer data shows nearly 30% of U.S. business travelers book flights 21 days or more in advance. But in China the figure is below 15%. In fact, Chinese travelers often wait until almost the last minute. About a third of Chinese travelers book within two days of departure, compared to a tenth of U.S. travelers.

An undisciplined approach to this data—formulated without market and industry insights—might lead to a plan for changing traveler behavior by encouraging Chinese travelers to book further in advance. But that would be a mistake.

Why? Because tightly regulated Chinese airfares tend to fall steeply as the departure date draws nearer. So, travelers in China won’t pay more, and may even save money, by waiting to book. That’s the opposite of the way U.S. airfares work, so U.S. travelers book well in advance whenever they can.

Applying U.S. market knowledge to Chinese market data is very likely to make that good data go bad. Make sure you’re approaching travel data with a disciplined, insightful and experienced approach to understanding what it means—and where it should lead you.

Want to know more about how disciplined data strategies can boost traveler engagement and travel program savings? Download Get Engaged: Empowering Travelers to Make Smart Buying Choices, and ask your BCD Travel account manager for details.

 

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