IHG to optimise marketing investments with business analytics

Hotel group InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has signed a five-year deal with Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) for its Test & Learn Management System.

IHG has selected APT’s solution for its marketing programmes, guest service, hotel management, and capital investments. It is going to be used for seven hotel brands, including Holiday Inn, InterContinental, and Crowne Plaza.

The solution enables users to identify statistically significant results and build models directly from these results to predict the impact of future decisions. According to APT, the Test & Learn capability allows hoteliers to assess what impact will the programme have on key performance measures such as RevPAR, bookings, guest satisfaction and RoI. It also helps in evaluating whether the programme will have a bigger impact on some guests or hotels than others. Specifically, hotels can determine the impact of any marketing initiative, from television advertising to online media, and can also measure the incremental value of pricing changes and how the changes affect different guest segments.

IHG chose APT after a three-month pilot, during which the company collaborated with APT to conduct in-market tests evaluating the effects of capital upgrades, promotional offers, and guest satisfaction on revenue per available room (RevPAR) and profit.