How to Mine Data for New Travel Products

The travel industry spends millions each year on developing products and services, eyefortravel writes. It recently conducted a survey in which 28% of those polled said its lack of knowledge on the proper data sources is holding product development back.

Some of the best sources, though, are the obvious ones, according to eyefortravel’s survey, which will be fully released in November. 62% of travel product developers say social media and in particular Facebook is a vital source of data when building new products. Twitter, meanwhile, performed very badly in the survey. Google is another useful data source with over 21% rating data from Google is vital for their product development.

How to Respond to Travelers Online Critiques

A poor review from a hotel or resort guest can spell doom for the company, with recommendations so highly valued by travelers. One way to mitigate a bad review is to, well, respond to it - in an even and measured tone,  writes Brian Payea, head of industry relations at TripAdvisor in a guest post on Tnooz.

"A commissioned survey of more than 2,100 travelers conducted by Forrester on behalf of TripAdvisor reveals some very compelling findings, chief among them that travelers find user-generated reviews important when making booking decisions, and also that the presence and tone of management responses have a significant impact on their impression of lodging businesses.”