Big data lab aims to help meet tourist needs

A new big data lab will help analysts in the travel business track how consumers use all kinds of tourism products.

The lab is a joint effort between a brand-management marketing company under China CYTS Tours, a leading travel service provider, and TalkingData, a mobile data service platform. The lab was launched in Beijing on April 25.

TalkingData has made inroads in the data business for finance, real estate and retails.

The lab is intended for destinations' integrated marketing and to support tourism innovation and upgrading, according to Lin Yifei, executive vice-president of TalkingData.

The lab will analyze where tourists come from, where they go and demographics.

"All the high research costs and difficult precision marketing caused by huge tourist numbers, complex consumption patterns and very fragmented data are gradually likely to become simple and efficient," says Lin.

The lab data is also supposed to offer solutions for tourism authorities, investors and enterprises.

"There are a great deal of data, but their sources are often not reliable and data couldn't be compared against each other," says Ge Lei, executive general manager of the CYTS company.

Ge is looking to the lab for support in tourism project decision-making and financing.

"On one hand, the research findings from the lab can help us better understand the status quo and trend of the industry," Ge says.

On the other hand, the lab would use data to serve tourism marketing, investment and product innovation, he adds.

At the ceremony, a big data report on parent-child tourism was released.