CASE STUDY had similar solutions like a data warehouse , some newer brands didn ’ t have solutions at all and they were not integrated at all . So that was fundamental in our roadmap and that ’ s where it all began .
How are analytics shaping business transformation in the digital age and how are you leveraging this to keep up with the pace of business ?
Technology is key and so is data . Hospitality is a very sensitive ‘ product ’ – it centres around people and the service we are providing to them , but the baseline is data . We are interested in providing a good overview of data to inform how the properties are performing , what the occupancy is like , available rooms , room rates , etc . We provide people with a lot of useful tools to operate their property and make decisions .
What can you tell us about TUI ’ s goal to create a centralised data warehouse across all brands and how seamless was this ?
When we started , we didn ’ t need to migrate anything . We were able to start from scratch and that ’ s what we basically did . So we started a greenfield project and tackled it from a business perspective – we considered what the business needed and focused on what we wanted to achieve first . We also tackled it from a technology perspective – so what stack were we going to use . TUI already has a very strong footprint in the cloud so it was clear to us that everything we would need to build would be in the cloud . So we engaged with Snowflake as our core analytics layer and core data warehouse in the cloud . Snowflake and Matillion built the core of that layer . Everything is hosted in the AWS Cloud in Frankfurt , managed completely centrally .
TUI WANTED TO USE VAST AMOUNTS OF DATA TO GLEAN ANSWERS TO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
ABOUT BUSINESS PERFORMANCE .
How did you harness the cloud for data transformation and what benefits has this provided you with ?
Cloud is everywhere . Some of our data sources are already in the cloud but a lot of our data sources are still on-premise in the respective destinations . But we are using the cloud to be able to scale because especially in our area of business there are certain areas where the demand is high and certain areas of the day where the demand is not too high . So of course , particularly in the morning , everybody needs their latest reports , the chefs are checking how many guests they have in the property and how many meals they need to prepare etc . There ’ s a lot happening in the first four or five hours of the day and then demand drops . So that ’ s a good chance for us to scale our environments based on the usage which is something you cannot do when you are on-premise because then you need to pay for the hardware , whether it ’ s used or not .
It ’ s no secret that TUI was hit very hard by the pandemic so particularly during this time we needed to focus on cost . Everybody talks about scaling and of course the business needs to grow , but in certain areas you might also need to scale down if the business requires it . p
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