Here’s a fantasy.
What if data management was a towering giant with long, reaching arms — wrapping around all of your data? What would be in the clutches of those big arms? In other words, what will data management include in the year 2025?
In years past, data management has been black and white — a narrow focus on what qualifies under a data management practice. It usually boiled down to the simple collection and storing of data, not the actual management part.
And that kind of black-and-white thinking won’t serve hoteliers in 2025. With more channels of information feeding into a healthy data management practice, it will be crucial to understand the trends that you can action to keep your hotel a responsible and effective steward of your guest data and drive the most revenue possible.
It’s time for hoteliers to be that giant with those big arms and take control of data management with these trends:
Trend #1: Ending the silo game
Chasing data that’s stuck in silos isn’t the result of effective data management — quite the opposite. Data silos contribute to increased operational costs, decreased staff productivity, and a diminished guest experience. In 2025, hoteliers will end the constant battle with inconsistent data across departments and leave the “big data” problems behind.
Tip: Find a solution that can “centralize” your guest data and eliminate the silos. Inconsistency means you can’t get a holistic view of your operations or guest preferences. Technology, like a Customer Data Platform, provides that much-needed consistency by bringing guest data out of silos across multiple touchpoints and channels in real-time.
Trend #2: Planning for revenue beyond the room
“Heads in beds” — a phrase we hope disappears in 2025. Getting “heads in beds” or concentrating on room revenue alone is an archaic approach to drive hotel profitability. Sure, you can use your guest data to get heads in beds, but what’s great about a thriving data management practice is that you can use that data to support other revenue streams.
Tip: Enter ancillary revenue. Hoteliers need to go beyond the room and leverage their technology to upsell guests at the spa, the restaurant, the golf course, or any other amenity. Constant shifts in the economy and fluctuations in demand make it difficult to power profits on occupancy, alone.
Trend #3: A case of mistaken identity
In 2025, guests will expect hoteliers to stop mistaking their identity. What we mean is that repeat guests want their favorite hotel brand to say “Welcome back” instead of “Welcome to.” In other words, guests want to be recognized for who they are. Your data management efforts should proudly produce profiles with the right data, so that you can use past stay information to greet loyal guests at the right time.
Tip: To prevent case of mistaken identity of your guests, seek out an identity resolution tool. This tool merges and de-duplicates guest profiles so that you can feel confident in recognizing repeat guests, and recognizing the right guest with the right data.
Trend #4: Using data to ditch point-less loyalty
Traditionally, guest loyalty has been point-based, with travelers competing for maximum loyalty points and the highest program tier, only to be served with a generic reward that every other member gets. Not anymore, because points are pointless.
Tip: Points don’t drive guest loyalty; personalization drives guest loyalty. That split decision of when a guest chooses to book direct with your hotel again or hop to an OTA is determined by whether or not you made them feel special. Focus on personalization this year.
Trend #5: Automation — 7 days a week
Whether it’s AI or another technology, hoteliers who automate data management are ahead of the curve in terms of marketing and fostering guest connections. Hoteliers will gain momentum with automated AI insights on their guest data to use for campaigns or to understand their guest profiles with accuracy.
Tip: Consider expanding your tech stack to include technology that can automate tasks involving guest data to free up staff from sifting through profile information manually.
Trend #6: NOI is king
NOI—Net Operating Income—is a hotelier’s best friend. That three-letter acronym determines overall hotel profitability, and this year, it’s tapping the minds of hoteliers to diversify their revenue opportunities and leverage their most lucrative guest segments.
Tip: Your data management practice heavily influences a hoteliers’ NOI. If your hotel can leverage your guest data to focus on direct bookings, you’ll shift marketing spend and market share away from OTAs — allowing for more opportunities for personalization to encourage direct bookings that will increase NOI.
Trend #7: The power of the voice channel
Your voice channel is like a running data faucet—guest data is flowing all day long, and your reservations team is left to absorb it all. Hoteliers who awaken to the fact that in 2025, the voice channel can be their most profitable channel, will ensure not only the reservation is made, but also that the guest data is collected, managed, and actioned.
Tip: Throw your agents a lifeline as they manage the flow of guest data from the voice channel. With some travelers and age demographics preferring to book over the phone than others, a proactive lead management software will ensure agents keep track of that information for future marketing efforts to drive revenue and realize the power of this channel.
Trend #8: Managing data for the instant brand story
[Guests] want the quick Instagramification of — What is this hotel? Should I stay there? Aaron Miller, VP of CRM and Digital at Highate, highlights the harsh truth that we humans just don’t have the attention span we used to. In fact, the average attention span has dropped from around 2.5 minutes to approximately 45 seconds since 2004.
Tip: If you already know your guests’ preferences and expectations of an ideal stay because you’ve been managing their data in a tool like a CDP, a bit of personalization could make a 45-second difference — preventing guests from dropping out of the booking engine, trashing your email, or hanging up on your reservations agent.
Trend #9: Enforcing data security
Businesses anticipate malware and ransomware (76%) and accidental data loss (63%) to be the top security risks over the next six months.
Hotel data security risks can take many forms, from bad actors accessing guest data by way of cyber attacks to risks stemming from internal sources. Have data you know is sitting in a data silo? Staff trying to resolve duplicate guest profiles manually to find the true identity of each guest? That’s what we call data mismanagement.
Tip: Adopting technology that supports guests’ privacy concerns, abides by new privacy laws, and protects your hotel’s data integrity will be a lifeline in 2025. The solution to eliminating security risks is “centralized” data. Technology like a Customer Data Platform (CDP) is the perfect weapon for battling the dangers of data-related security risks and privacy breaches.
There’s more to data management in 2025
The trends listed above are evidence that data management goes beyond storing and collecting your guest data, and in fact impacts business decisions, booking behavior, and hotel profitability. And data management may seem like a giant, but you can be the giant that tackles these trends head-on to ensure the integrity of your data practices and drive revenue in 2025.
About Revinate
Revinate is a direct booking platform that leads the hospitality industry in driving direct revenue and increased profitability.
Our products and our people combine to give hoteliers the superpowers they need to crush their goals. With Revinate, hoteliers shift share away from OTAs and drive tangible results across an individual property or a portfolio. Our industry-leading, AI-powered, customer data platform collects, unifies and, synthesizes data giving hoteliers a foundational advantage.
Hoteliers gain critical intelligence – guest lifetime spend, stay preferences, ancillary revenue, and more. With our Rich Guest Profiles database, hoteliers don’t need to guess who their most profitable guests are, or how to drive conversions across email, voice, messaging, and digital channels.
Revinate’s direct booking platform and omnichannel communication technology powers 900+ million Rich Guest Profiles across 12,500+ hotels to drive over $17 billion in direct revenue.
