Data Discovery in Hospitality: Top Benefits, Key Challenges and Core Capabilities in 2024

Updated October 24th, 2024

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As hotels, resorts, and travel companies collect vast amounts of data—from booking patterns and guest preferences to operational metrics and marketing analytics—data discovery becomes essential in turning this raw information into actionable insights.
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This article discusses the benefits and challenges of data discovery in hospitality, and explores the core capabilities to look for in modern data discovery tools.


Table of Contents

  1. What is data discovery in hospitality?
  2. Benefits of data discovery in hospitality
  3. Common challenges in data discovery for hospitality
  4. Overcoming common data discovery challenges in hospitality
  5. Data discovery in hospitality: Core capabilities to look for in a unified control plane
  6. Bottom line
  7. Related reads

What is data discovery in hospitality?

Data discovery in hospitality is the process of analyzing and exploring data from multiple sources—such as guest reservations, feedback, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and occupancy rates—to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities.

“Data discovery is a critical first step for hotel and resort companies to understand who their customer base is before any business decisions can be made.” - Data analytics in hotel and integrated resort brands

Leveraging that data effectively can help:

  • Identify trends in guest preferences to tailor services
  • Improve revenue management through real-time booking and pricing data analysis
  • Enhance operational efficiency by enabling data-driven decisions across departments
  • Strengthen compliance and security with robust governance policies

For example, a global hotel chain can use data discovery to analyze occupancy rates and pricing trends across different regions, allowing for real-time pricing adjustments and promotions, maximizing revenue during peak travel seasons.


Benefits of data discovery in hospitality

Data discovery can help hospitality businesses generate business value and reap benefits, such as:

  1. Faster and more effective searches
  2. Easier understanding of data with proper context
  3. Better cross-team collaboration
  4. Improved decision-making
  5. Revenue growth

Let’s explore each benefit further.

1. Faster and more effective searches


Effective data discovery allows hotel managers, marketing teams, and operations staff to quickly search through vast data sets and retrieve relevant information without needing to rely on technical teams.

For instance, a revenue manager might need to analyze booking data across multiple properties to identify trends in occupancy rates and make dynamic pricing decisions.

2. Easier understanding of data with proper context


Modern data discovery tools provide business users with essential metadata—data lineage, usage history, and annotations. So, they can understand the context behind the data and answer questions, such as:

  • What data do we have and what does that mean?
  • Who has access to that data?
  • What transformations has the dataset undergone?

For example, understanding the origin of guest data—whether from booking platforms or direct bookings—can help refine marketing strategies.

3. Better cross-team collaboration


Effective data discovery means having a unified platform for various teams across the hospitality organization—such as marketing, guest relations, and operations—to collaborate. They can even share data sets with a click to everyone with the right access credentials.

By providing a unified platform (or rather, a unified control plane for data) where teams can search, analyze, and discuss data, data discovery enables cross-functional collaboration.

For example, guest relations teams can collaborate with marketing teams to analyze data on guest feedback and craft targeted promotions aimed at enhancing the guest experience.

4. Improved decision-making


Personalized guest experiences are essential in the hospitality industry, and data discovery helps organizations tailor their services based on guest preferences and behaviors.

By discovering insights from guest data, such as favorite room types or dining preferences, hotels can offer personalized recommendations, upgrades, or targeted loyalty rewards, improving guest satisfaction and retention.

5. Revenue growth


Data discovery tools help identify revenue optimization opportunities, such as analyzing pricing data, occupancy trends, and guest spending patterns.

This leads to better revenue management strategies, including upselling opportunities (room upgrades, dining experiences) and new revenue streams (spas, events, etc.).


Common challenges in data discovery for hospitality

Despite its benefits, data discovery in hospitality comes with its own set of challenges. Here are the key hurdles to overcome:

  • Processing large volumes of data
  • Data inconsistencies and quality issues
  • Data chaos without adequate context
  • Data security risks without the right access policies
  • Poor decision-making without a single source of truth for all data

Let’s explore each data discovery challenge further.

Processing large volumes of data


Hotels and resorts generate vast amounts of data from reservations, guest reviews, POS systems, and occupancy reports. Managing and analyzing these data volumes in real-time can be daunting without the right tools.

Data inconsistencies and quality issues


Hospitality data often comes from disparate sources, leading to inconsistencies in formats, quality, and accuracy. For example, guest data from different booking platforms may have different structures, making it challenging to consolidate and interpret.

Data chaos without adequate context


Without proper context, data can become overwhelming. If hotel staff can’t see data lineage or understand how data has been used in previous analyses, they may misinterpret insights, leading to poor decisions.

Data security risks without the right access policies


Hospitality organizations handle sensitive guest information, such as credit card details, making data security paramount. It’s essential to enforce granular access controls, ensuring that only authorized personnel can view or edit specific data assets.

Poor decision-making without a single source of truth for all data


To make informed decisions, hospitality organizations must have a unified view of their data. However, when data is siloed across departments—such as reservations, guest relations, and marketing—it becomes difficult to maintain a single source of truth.


Overcoming common data discovery challenges in hospitality with a unified control plane for data

A unified control plane for data acts as a stable and consistent layer of oversight that enterprises can rely on, regardless of the underlying platforms they use. It’s a single platform where you can search, discover, access, and govern your data assets across all the components of your data ecosystem.

This helps consolidate data across teams, use cases, and systems, ensuring that all teams are working with the same, accurate information.

Also, read -> The unified control plane in action


Data discovery in hospitality: Core capabilities to look for in a unified control plane

The core capabilities to consider when choosing a data discovery tool for the modern data stack include (but aren’t limited to):

  1. Google-like search (natural language search): Search for columns, reports, dashboards, SQL syntax, and even glossary terms across the entire data ecosystem. You can get results for synonyms related to your keyword, find assets linked to business metrics, and discover data through ‘db.schema’ – despite typos and other keyword errors.
  2. Metadata filters: Create filters with any metadata property (owner, certification, classification, last run status, etc.)
  3. Auto-profiling for data quality assurance: Understand the structure, completeness, and quality of the data with auto-generated statistics (null values, data distribution, outliers).
  4. 360-degree visibility and contextual discussions with embedded collaboration: Support for in-line discussions, allowing you to comment on data assets, ask questions, raise support tickets, and resolve issues directly within the platform – without switching apps.
  5. Cross-system, column-level, actionable data lineage: Trace the flow of data through various systems—from its origin, through transformations, to its final usage in dashboards, reports, or analytics models.
  6. Granular access control and governance: Allows you to set customized permissions for viewing, editing, or sharing data assets. This maintains confidentiality while democratizing access across teams.

Also, read -> How to automate data profiling | What is active metadata?


Bottom line

Data discovery helps you understand your business, analyze your data, and uncover unique, useful insights to drive faster, smarter decision-making. This enhances guest experiences and optimizes operations, setting the stage for continued growth and innovation.

A unified control plane for data, built on the premise of embedded collaboration that is key in today’s modern workplace, is essential for effective data discovery in hospitality.

Know how Atlan - the unified control plane for data and AI can help your team with data discovery. Talk to our experts!


Data discovery in Hospitality: Related reads


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