The use of data will become an increasingly important part of travel business operations in Asia in the coming years, a study undertaken by Hotelbeds Group has found.

In a survey conducted throughout the company’s inaugural MarketHub Asia event, which took place in Bangkok this week, half (50%) of the delegates questioned said they expect to “significantly” increase their budget for data and analytics next year, while a further 26% replied that the budget growth would be about the same as this year. No respondents said they expect a reduced data budget.

And there appear to be high hopes that this increased investment will boost companies’ top and bottom lines; an overwhelming 92% of the delegates surveyed said they believe that greater use of data analytics will result in an increase in annual revenues of more than 20% over the next five years, while 19% expected a jump in excess of 60%.

Asian travel companies are facing challenges with the extraction and analysis of data, however; 34% said they lacked skilled people in this field, while 33% were worried that their data wasn’t “clean”. A further 24% cited a lack of technology as an obstacle to data analysis.

These findings came against the backdrop of Hotelbeds’ first ever industry conference in Asia, which ran under the theme “Powered by data, driven by people”. During the three-day event at the Avani Riverside Hotel in Bangkok, high-level speakers and panellists spoke of the need for businesses to harness and utilise data, both from internal and external sources, as a means of improving business performance and enhancing personalisation for the customer.

It was also revealed however, that while the world is currently producing a staggering amount of data (40 zettabytes, compared to 0.1 zettabytes in 2001), only about 5% of it is actually being used. According to Hotelbeds’ sales director, Sam Turner, presents a “massive opportunity” to travel companies.

The survey also found that demand forecasting is currently the main use of company data (stated by 35% of respondents), while a further 24% use data analysis for targeting marketing campaigns and 23% for revenue management.

The survey gathered the responses of more than 200 delegates from the Asian travel industry over the course of two days at Hotelbeds’ MarketHub Asia.