For a long time, travel businesses were operating with the objective to move people from one point to another. Now however, they put a lot of effort in understanding their customer and are constantly exploring ways to get more insights on their customers to serve them better. In order to help Destination Marketing Organisations take a step forward in this direction, Amadeus has rolled out a product suite, Destination Insight. It aims to put DMOs in the know with analysis of up-to-date travel data, removing some of the guesswork involved when making key marketing decisions.

DMOs often look at the data about arrivals because they don’t really have a direct link to customers to gauge how their various initiatives and global events impacted the behaviour of travellers. The have to put together pieces of data from different sources with gap of months. The data is then used to draw outline for the next year. However, as the insights are delayed, this cycle doesn’t allow DMOs to quickly iterate based on the data. Instead, there is lot of guesswork involved in the key decisions where they should have better information to act upon.

The suite leverages the travel data to draw actionable insights for destinations. By analysing billions of global air travel transactions in near real time, the suite can reveal hidden opportunities for DMOs to boost their destinations’ growth. DMOs can for example run relevant analyses of traveller searches and bookings to measure, adjust and build more effective campaigns. They can also view bookings to their destination versus competitors to understand who they are most closely competing with and quickly develop strategies in response to market developments.

Steven Valcke, Business Intelligence, Marketing at Visit Flanders said: “It’s becoming increasingly necessary for DMOs to be flexible in their strategies. Thanks to Amadeus Destination Insight, the way we use data has changed significantly. We can monitor, on a weekly basis, the impact of factors such as currency changes on traveller demand in our target source markets and adjust campaigns in response. Having this kind of detailed data allows us to be more responsive to developments.”

Destination Insight is flexible and scalable, and can be used by both emerging and mature DMOs, whether they are monitoring travel at city, country or region levels. Destination Insight has two modules, Top View, and Navigator, which can be used together to maximise actionable insights and equip DMOs to compete for traveller attention in the right place at the right time.

Pascal Clement, Head of Travel Intelligence, Amadeus, added: “One of the most game-changing aspects of big data is that it enables organisations to look into the future and anticipate the needs of customers.  Destinations that can understand today’s travellers through data, and respond with targeted, effective campaigns will be well-placed to capitalise on changing traveller preferences”.

The tool very well highlights how the data brands generate can be a powerful growth tool if used right. Steven Valcke explains in detail how Visit Flanders is using the data in this blog post. More details about Destination Insight can be found here.

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We are just back after three exciting days at SATTE 2016. In these three days, our team met people associated with different verticals of travel industry. On the first day, we got a chance to have a conversation with Vinsensius Jemadu, Director for Asia Pacific Tourism Promotion for Indonesia who shared how India is significant for Indonesia’s tourism industry.

Vinsensius Jemadu, Director for Asia Pacific Tourism Promotion for Indonesia

Indonesia sees arrivals from many countries in large numbers and now they are looking at the Indian travellers for growth. This year they are expecting 350,000 arrivals from India and for that, they are taking a 360 degree approach to promote various attractions the country has to offer. There are many Indians travelling to countries like Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia and Indonesia is in the same region. According to Vinsensius, the government has two tools to invite more travellers, regulation and promotion. In terms of regulation, the government is offering free visa for Indian travellers. For promotions, they will look at digital platforms as well as TV commercials. Along with that they will be hosting multiple events in major Indian cities to introduce people to the Indonesian culture.

Not only are they inspiring more Indians to travel to Indonesia but also working with Garuda Indonesia to provide direct flights and improve connectivity between the two countries. Having direct flights will certainly help bring more travellers to the region.

When asked about the role of new travel startups in boosting tourism in Indonesia, he says that the startups will certainly help in boosting the experience of travellers but at this point, most of them don’t have the scale to make a major contribution. According to him, these young businesses will need another few years before they can be a major driver. They are keeping a close watch on the startup ecosystem and supporting the promising ideas in different ways.

With the Government of Indonesia looking at India as the next major country who will be visiting Indonesia at a large scale, expect some interesting promotions and campaigns specific to Indian travellers.

The post “Indonesia is expecting 350,000 arrivals from India this year”-Vinsensius Jemadu, Director, APAC Tourism Promotion for Indonesia appeared first on TravHQ.