2024 hospitality benchmark report
Database health – APAC
Database health – APAC
In this chapter you will find
In this chapter you will find
Introduction
Introduction
Are you off to the races, or stalled at the starting line?
A car is only as fast as its engine, and your hospitality marketing is only as powerful as the database that fuels it.
As a hotelier, you know you have a lot of guest data — whether it’s booking history in your PMS, browsing behavior from your website, or restaurant reservations — but without a well-oiled Customer Data Platform, your marketing engine will be clogged with faulty contact information, bounced emails, and generic, un-personalized communications.
With a finely-tuned database, hoteliers can build rich guest profiles, deploy advanced segmentation, and monitor campaign performance, earning more direct revenue and increasing profits along the way.
Downloads
Downloads
APAC database health benchmarks
APAC database health benchmarks
A healthy database is a growing database.
Growing your database with valuable guest information is especially important now, since 2024 is the year that the tracking cookie crumbles. Hoteliers and other businesses will no longer be able to purchase large amounts of third-party data obtained from third-party cookies. Instead, hospitality businesses need to build their own databases with first-party and zero-party data that their guests freely and consensually give them.
The good thing about this change is that using first-party data is effective. A study by Sojern found that 81% of hoteliers saw an increase in revenue when they used first-party data strategies. Guests also benefited, with 57% of those surveyed reporting higher satisfaction levels.
Learn more about how to adapt to a cookieless world with our resource, “The complete guide to first-party data for hoteliers.”
Database growth overview
We saw our customers experience significant database growth in 2023, as hoteliers in APAC increased their guest records by an average of 26%. North America had the highest growth at 29%, followed by EMEA at 27%.
This growth is a promising sign that hoteliers are prioritizing guest data and embracing digital innovation with data-focused marketing tactics.
Database growth – APAC
Within APAC, Australia & New Zealand (ANZ) had the strongest database growth rate at 36%, followed by the “Rest of APAC” group at 21%, and South East Asia (SEA) at 19%.
But growing your database is just the beginning. Next, we’ll examine how to assess the health of your guest database.
The makeup of your database: benchmarks for complete guest profiles and how to value them
The makeup of your database: benchmarks for complete guest profiles and how to value them
Growing your database is just the beginning — you also need to assess the health of your data and invest in it.
Quick links
Database records with valid email addresses and phone numbers – overview
On average, 69% of an APAC hotel’s database records will have a valid email address that is not masked by an OTA. This is an indicator of email health, an essential measure of the usefulness of the profiles in your database.
Clearly, people need to see the value in sharing their phone number, and need a clear reason to do so — whether that is added convenience or an incentive like a discount.
Capturing guest phone numbers is essential for interacting with them on both messaging and voice channels, and we’ll explore how hoteliers are leveraging both to drive revenue and delight guests in their respective sections of this report.
Database records with valid email addresses and phone numbers – APAC
As you grow your database, track whether you are bringing in high-quality records that are complete with guest contact information to ensure your marketing efforts actually reach them.
Both ANZ and “Rest of APAC” outperformed the regional benchmark, while SEA is slightly behind.
The regional portion of database entries with a phone number is 51%. Guests in ANZ were much more willing to share their personal numbers at 64% on average.
Value of records with email addresses and phone numbers – overview
Every additional complete guest record has potential for future, repeat bookings. We calculated the incremental value of a guest database record with a valid email address by comparing the revenue from all records with an email in 2023 to the revenue from records without one. The result? APAC hoteliers can expect to earn $8.32 more per contact.
As you grow your database and improve its email health, you’re increasing the value of your data and the revenue you can expect to bring in.
The incremental value of capturing a phone number in APAC, meanwhile, is $5.45. These numbers add up fast, so make sure you are collecting guest email addresses and phone numbers at every possible opportunity. The value of a phone number, however, isn’t just measured in revenue from upsells or future bookings alone.
Value of records with email addresses and phone numbers – APAC
Phone numbers are key for communicating with your guests on both the messaging channel and the voice channel. Using these channels can improve the guest experience better by considering their preferences. Research shows that customers are very open to texting with brands, but are wary of being bombarded with too many marketing messages.
The right tools for messaging and voice services can also make staff more efficient, saving you both time and money.
The “Rest of APAC” segment has the highest average value of records with email addresses and phone numbers, followed by ANZ and SEA.
Identity resolution: benchmarks for a healthy database
Identity resolution: benchmarks for a healthy database
The elephant in the room when it comes to email addresses and hotel databases? OTA-masked emails. OTAs are, of course, great for bringing in new guests — but the OTA relationship can sour if they get in the way of hoteliers driving loyalty and repeat business from their guests.
Masking the guest’s email address, of course, is the #1 way OTAs try to maintain control of the guest relationship.
Quicklinks
Database records with an OTA-masked email address – overview
And the scope of this problem is significant. In APAC, 13% of raw profiles in a hotel database contained an OTA-masked email. That means up to 13% of your guests would be unavailable for retargeting, costing you potential loyal guests and direct revenue from re-targeting. Contacts with masked emails can also increase the cost of re-acquiring guests and lower profit margins.
Database records with an OTA-masked email address – APAC
ANZ hoteliers have an even higher percent of OTA-masked emails in their databases, at 17.2%.
But hoteliers can regain control of the guest experience and direct booking revenue — with the right technology. Specifically, identity resolution powered by a CDP.
Identity resolution is tech that merges and dedupes guest data into clean, rich profiles — complete with every interaction they’ve had with your hotel, from email engagement to stay history to reviews. Revinate’s identity resolution capabilities, called Advanced Profile Synthesis, uses a sophisticated AI/ML algorithm trained specifically on hospitality data.
Merged profiles per database – overview
So what happens when you apply the power of identity resolution to all of those OTA-masked emails? They get matched up with other identity indicators and consolidated into unique rich guest profiles.
In APAC, 10.8% of rich guest profiles have been merged together from multiple identifiers, like email addresses.
Merged profiles per database – APAC
Revinate has merged nearly three million profiles of guests who booked through OTAs with their real email address. Over 17% of these merged profiles had two or more OTA emails associated with them. That means you have repeat guests who are loyal to your hotel, but not the booking channel. All they need is a good reason to book direct.
