Below a small beginner’s guide for hotelier about what are hotel data and analytics when we are talking about hospitality market.

Big data
Big Data is a very large set of data that can reveal trends. It’s often external data that is not generated by your hotel. Ex: weather, traffic, and social media.

Small data
Small Data is more manageable in size and often highly – actionable. It exists within your hotel and comes from places like your PMS, Channel Manager or website.

Unstructured data
This is the data that is not organized. Customer reviews on Trip Advisor, for example, contain a lot of data, yet it’s not organized for easy analysis.

Structured Data
The data that is labeled and categorized. Reservations, for example, are mainly structured, have an arrival date, departure date, name, and country.

Descriptive Analytics
The most common and basic form of analytics, descriptive analytics uses large groups of data to summarize what has happened. Ex: everyday hotel reports, like performance report and picks up reports. Descriptive Analytics is also known as reporting.

Prescriptive Analytics
Suggests action based on trends. The most advanced level of analytics, it combines structured and unstructured data with an advanced process like machine learning. It is the most likely future for hotel analytics. Some advanced revenue management systems are headed in this direction.