Smart Travels, Smarter Insights

SMART TRAVELS, SMARTER INSIGHTS

The Fusionex Smart Tourism software suite introduces an omni-channel platform for travelers and service providers – helping the tourism industry gain insights from data to actively engage and promote tourist spots, and provide insights to city planners utilizing tourist-friendly infrastructure.

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Table of Executive Summary ……………………..…………………………………………….. 3

Contents Introduction ...……………………………………………………………………………... 4

Smarter tourism for more enjoyable, fuss-free trips ……………….…… 6

Collecting and interpreting tourist data ………………..….…………..…….. 9

The right IT partner to expedite tech rollout ……………………………….. 10

Fusionex Smart Tourism ………………………………………………...…………… 11

Smart Tourism scenarios ……………..……………….……...……………………... 13

Business benefits ……………………………………………………………………….. 1 4

Conclusion ………………………………………………………….………………………. 15

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Executive Summary

Smart Tourism focusses on bolstering the entire travel and leisure ecosystem with intelligent systems, designed to streamline business operations. These systems utilize electronic, Internet-enabled interfaces to replace the current traditional and relatively analog methods in the travel and hospitality sector. Fusionex Smart Tourism consolidates various platforms from its suite of solutions to shorten the booking process, deliver more targeted marketing, and provide a mobile, always-on connection for active and intelligent tourist engagement.

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Introduction

International tourism is a continuously growing industry which stands to gain firstly from businesses adopting an increasingly global outlook, secondly from lower air travel fares caused by competition, and thirdly as a result of plunging oil prices. Despite an economic slowdown in 2015, not only did tourism maintain its levels; on the contrary, revenue derived from international visitors in 2015 alone hit approximately USD1.23 trillion worldwide! This marks an increase of 3.6% in receipts from the previous year as reported by the World Tourism Organization. This was also marked with a concurrent increase of international arrivals by 4.4%.1

Figure 1: International Tourism Arrivals and Receipts in 2015

Source: World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 2016

This translates to an increasing number of opportunities for those in the travel and hospitality industry to boost their bottom-line by attracting tourists to their corner of the Earth.2

1 World Tourism Organization, “Exports from international tourism rise 4% in 2015”, May 2016 2 Ibid. This includes revenue from accommodation, entertainment, shopping, F&B, and other goods and services.

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Figure 2: International Tourism Expenditure in 2015

Source: World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 2016

That said, even as the number of travelers looks set to increase year-on-year, diversity in their purchasing behavior and preference to certain destinations or activities makes it a constant challenge where appealing to their tastes are concerned. From food to historical monuments, photogenic vistas, urban entertainment and shopping outlets, and unique adventures – the interests of tourists are as varied as the countries they hail from.

Businesses must adapt to changing tastes and trends in tourism while finding ways to promote age-old attractions with new and alluring methods. This is necessary especially since a greater number of people are turning to the web when planning their trips. A Google study found that almost 75% of leisure travelers and close to 80% of business travelers use the Internet as a source during their trip planning process.3

With the advent of the Internet, the very nuts and bolts of a particular trip can now be researched online. As a result, while the majority previously turned to travel agents or hardcopy brochures when planning out a trip, many now find the Internet integral when booking a room, for instance. Google reported that both leisure and business travelers typically use online sources such as hotel, airline, map, travel review, and even car rental websites and mobile apps when planning their trips. So businesses involved in the tourism industry such as hotels, and even those remotely connected such as sky-diving attractions, would do well to create and maintain an attractive presence on the web.

3 Google, “The 2014 Traveler’s Road to Decision”, June 2014

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Smarter tourism for more enjoyable, fuss-free trips

The speed and ubiquity of the Internet makes planning holidays and business trips easier and faster than before. With the use of websites and mobile applications to register for tourism services, information gathered during the registration process could be used to build a comprehensive database of customer knowledge. The processing of information such as age, gender, departure points, arrival points, room type preference, etc. would prove useful – especially when this is coupled with advanced analytics to derive insights into holiday destination preference, seasonal travel trends, and even purchasing behavior.

When it comes to smart tourism, the now ever-present and popular smartphone has become an indispensable part of the trip-planning experience. A study4 indicated that smartphone users searched for tourist-related information by accessing their stored history of bookmarked websites, emails, and past searches. Even stored media files such as photos and videos of previous trips undertaken were considered important to users when doing tourism research. This was because past memories of old trips gave travelers the chance to relive and reminisce about their experiences, furthering a desire to visit the same or similar location again, sometimes with a different travel partner or group. It can therefore be surmised that for resourceful businesses intending to adopt smart tourism, making use of tech like online cookies to track a smartphone’s browsing history would be beneficial in predicting where a traveler might be inclined to visit next. Even smarter tech could include image or social media analytics where geo-tags placed by travelers on their photos could be compiled on a platform and stored for further behavioral analysis.

4 Ho et al, “Pre-trip tourism information search by smartphones and use of alternative information channels: A conceptual model”, January 2016

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Figure 3: The omni-channel to achieve the best outcomes for both traveler and tourism service provider

Collecting data, anticipating needs and wants, expediting service, etc. – smart tourism uses a myriad of technologies to achieve ideal outcomes for both travelers and tourism service providers. It is no wonder stakeholders across the globe are starting to embrace relevant IT initiatives, aware that the potential benefits derived from investing in smart tech outweighs the cost many times over.

The city of Barcelona in Spain is said to have offered travelers with interactive bus shelters.5 Upon reaching one of these structures, travelers would be provided with tourist-relevant information and bus arrival times. They are also able to charge their mobile devices via USB ports provided. In Australia, Brisbane has installed more than 100 beacons at various interesting locations around the city to relay information to travelers through a mobile application – all tourists do is pass within the particular radius of an installed beacon. In the Far East, Jeju Island in South Korea has become a smart tourism hub and is planning to creatively make use of technology in the delivery of information to travelers. Smart tourism is evidently extending (in an industry-specific way) the existing infrastructure of smart cities.

The business side of smart tourism has also been deeper delved into – three components take the centerstage, namely extracting data, the provision of interconnectivity, and data analysis.6 In essence, smart tourism can be said to function just as the traditional industry would, but it capitalizes on speed and efficiency by using sensors and trackers to collect data from physical infrastructure, social

5 Gretzel et al, “Smart tourism: foundations and developments”, August 2015 6 Ibid.

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connections, human bodies and minds – then converts such data into valuable business insights, leading to informed business decisions which can increase overall efficiency and enrich the experience of travelers.

Through the tracking of movements of travelers, via Wi-Fi or near field communication (NFC) connections, marketers can be fed with information on relevant preferences. An integrated strategy can then be uniquely marketed to the traveler thus resulting in an innovative tourism experience. Marketing tourism products to travelers can therefore be more effective –information gathered from the web can influence travel plans before departure, but presenting local information can guide and influence the travel plans of a tourist even after arriving at their destination.7 For example, if the tourist has already visited the same or a similar attraction, promotions to visit other related and nearby attractions could be sent to them via notifications or messages. This affords an opportunity for cross-selling within the tourism industry or even within the business arms of a singular tourism giant/conglomerate.

7 Ma et al, “Study on Core Values of Smart Tourism and Empirical Research Based on Tourist Perception”, June 2015

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Collecting and interpreting tourist data

New platforms and methods of managing data are now abundant. While legacy systems like hotel guestbooks may still be used in some establishments, many businesses have attempted to incorporate some form of data management system in their premises. Entering data electronically is expected to save time and while requiring additional investment at the beginning, it is typically projected to save costs and increase overall efficiency in the long run.

In creating an architectural framework to describe the collection and interpretation of tourist data, the base layer is referred to as ‘knowledge creation’. This is said to include the many different sources of tourist data – Internet search history, bookings, reviews, etc. Such reviews can be gathered from tourists in the form of explicit feedback and surveys, or from the GPS tracking of travelers’ geographical movements. Data gathered is classified as structured data, e.g. payment transactions or ratings between one to five stars, and unstructured data which includes free-written text like blog entries, social media comments, and even abstract forms like videos.8 Both structured and unstructured data need to be taken into account to achieve a holistic view of tourist sentiment as different segments of tourists could use different feedback mediums – the younger and more technologically savvy for example usually adopt more electronic means.

Knowledge creation can also be carried out via data mining activities, consisting of trend and pattern- finding in the collected data. Data mining is essential in the tourism industry as it can be used to unearth previously hidden insights in vast databases. It can also, as an advantage over other statistical methods, examine non-linear relationships in the data. Several drawbacks do exist however that affect the quality of the analysis, e.g. if the data quality is subpar – incomplete, full of noise or containing redundancies.9 If properly and sufficiently cleaned and massaged, the gathered data can nonetheless reveal a host of insights. Analyses via Analytics can also be carried out to determine tourist arrival trends by time, season, or customer origin.

8 Fuchs et al, “Big data analytics for knowledge generation in tourism destinations – A case from Sweden”, August 2014 9 Ibid.

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The right IT partner to expedite tech rollout

Businesses involved in tourism should seek assistance from technology partners to facilitate proper procurement of tourist data to begin their own analysis. Analog and legacy systems which are obsolete can also be phased out and replaced by electronic and automated methods of doing business to improve overall efficiency. Tapping into a globalized marketplace and providing a much better travel research experience via the Internet would put the tourism industry in good stead, with customer-generated reviews attracting even more customers and creating an organic cycle of sales growth.

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Fusionex Smart Tourism

The Fusionex Smart Tourism offering is based on 3 core principles: Big Data Analytics (BDA), active engagement data platform, and mobility. For BDA, Fusionex brings to the fore its expertise in compiling and processing valuable data, transforming such data to useful information. The company’s advanced analytics platform, GIANT, also produces comprehensive yet user-friendly, humanized visualizations to better depict such information. With the aide of GIANT, organizations that have worked with Fusionex are able to view relevant data from different angles. They are able to make use of GIANT’s interactive nature to modify and manipulate the visualizations to uncover hidden insights which could not be seen before in static business reports.

By compiling and analyzing data, GIANT is able to track and make predictions and prescriptions about tourist behavior, tourist preference, and tourist concentration. Advanced visualizations in the form of interactive graphs allows users to receive real-time information and tweak the parameters to reveal different graphs and thus identify useful trends which can then be the basis of new business strategies.

In turn, Fusionex’s engagement platform or Central Reservation System (CRS) eases trip planning and arrangements for travelers. The all-in-one reservation platform also acts as an important data extraction channel to allow for detailed analysis into traveler behavior, patterns, trends, and preferences. In order to improve the processes of the hospitality vertical, Fusionex developed the CRS to give freedom of choice to modern travelers who now are more discerning about making reservations on what they want, in the way that they want it. The CRS affords options such as flexible payment by allowing both prepaid and postpaid options and allows for seamless integration with online payment channels. It even introduces accompanying or complementing purchases to provide a better travel experience such as conference facilities, banquet rooms, and even tickets to theme parks or special events.

Highly adaptive, The Fusionex platform also works well with travel and hospitality organizations that already have a presence on the Internet or offer their services on mobile applications. Mobile applications are able to actively engage with tourists by offering particular deals based on the user’s preference, purchasing history, or current location. For example if the user has purchased a room in a hotel, they may be notified via their mobile app about a spa or gym deal which they can purchase in the same hotel. If the user is detected to be passing by a restaurant or café, they can receive push notifications to let them know about the food deals closest to them. Such manner of digital marketing is more targeted and aims to cater exactly to user needs and preferences, reducing noise from unrelated promotions, and more importantly, increasing the likelihood that more related offerings will be taken up. Fusionex recommends organizations that have not yet invested fully into mobile to do so – thereby future-proofing their business throughout this mobile Internet era.

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Fusionex’s social engagement platform provides a continuous and sticky engagement, allowing for in- depth understanding of travelers and client members. The social media module evaluates the behavioral traits of both travelers and service providers alike and functions as a platform for information, interactions, and engagement, all through a single, unified channel. The platform also features e- commerce capabilities that allow for services to be provided and transactions to take place seamlessly over the Internet, while on the go. The Fusionex platform allows travelers to find current events and special offers. Users are then able to also explore such ‘hot spots’ categorized by various interests and also to rate, review, and share those ‘hot spots’ with families and friends – all in the comfort of the same platform.

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Smart Tourism scenarios

The Fusionex Smart Tourism triumvirate is presented in a user-friendly form which can be immediately utilized to see fast benefits. Part of this is due to it being tailored to particular business needs, e.g. if a hotel wants to upgrade its legacy booking system, a museum wants to draw more visitors through its doors, or even if a country’s tourism board wants to obtain more in-depth insights about tourist arrivals to its shores. The benefits of the Fusionex unified Smart Tourism platform can be summarized in brief to include the following:

Booking

 Centralized interaction channel fielding all customer enquiries  All-encompassing reservation platform for tourist services, including hotels, tour packages, transportation, F&B, etc.

Increase in foot traffic

 Facilitating sharing and reviews of visited ‘hot spots’ with the community  Empowering users to discover the latest deals in town through mobile devices

In-depth insights

 Data analytics to improve efficiency  Enhancement of smart tourism via visualization and insights

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Business benefits

 Fusionex Smart Tourism provides insights into the pulse of the city, where tourists congregate, where ‘hot spots’ are located, and how they are all connected to each other forming one large ecosystem and community  Tourist behavioral analytics allows businesses to discern useful insights such as what travelers are looking for and how much they are willing to pay for it  Peak seasons can be predicted based on information that is otherwise overlooked, e.g. public holidays, school breaks, etc.  Preferential insights affords businesses an understanding of what to expect from tourists of specific genders, ages, and nationalities  Marketing insights can be derived which leads to increased opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling

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Conclusion

Smart Tourism is the latest wave on how the travel and hospitality industry can be accelerated with the aid of technology, but implementing these various technological solutions can pose a challenge to the uninitiated.

The Fusionex Smart Tourism solution suite wields the various mobile, reservation, and analytics tech to synergize all key levels of a hospitality business. Apart from the various platforms and solutions provided, clients and partners of Fusionex also derive assurance and confidence from its pedigree and experience in the travel and hospitality arena with its software quality assured by a stable of subject matter experts who advise, develop and guide businesses who are prepared to embrace technology and the imminent future of this sector.

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