Is 'data scientist' the next hot position in hotels/hospitality?
Information Technology
— 12 experts shared their view



General Manager at The Bürgenstock Selection
I fully agree that our industry is more and more driven by consumer behavior in a digital and data context. The hospitality sector has been slow to respond to the digital age which explains why other technology-driven companies have managed to dominate some of that space and changed the industry fundamentally. We need to move from a reactive to a proactive mode, not just to manage “in response” to new technology, but convert that influx of data into a strategic asset next to managing hotels and service experience we tend to focus on. see more

CIO MEA and Global Accor Strategic Programs
Before data scientists can to their job properly we need to find structured ways of collecting and consolidating our data. It's true that we have a lot of data floating around our industry but it still sits in many different places and even the ownership of the data is unclear. see more

Hospitality Consultant
In short, yes, but the problem hotels will have is the quality of the data and getting it into a repository in a meaningful, normalized, standardized way. Many legacy hotel systems are hell-bent on not allowing hotel staff to get at their own data, at least not at a reasonable cost. APIs are far and few between and those who start using them may find they are the first to do so and the APIs are partial and buggy. FTP file drops may be the only way to surface data. The traditional BI process is extract-transform-load-visualize, but the effort in the extract-transform piece can be 80% of the effort. Dashboards and data analysis are the easy part! Start early, invest properly, focus on customer data.


Corporate Director of IT at Bierwirth & Kluth Hotel Management
Isn't it a shame: I'm having that ton of data available at my disposal – but, currently can't afford to further invest in talented people and high performance systems to give us more of these ever so helpful insights! see more

Head of Systems & Technology Architecture at citizenM
Modern hoteliers realise that to win the hearts and minds of the digital customer, they have to effectively engage with those customers through all stages of the customer journey. This desire for continuous engagement in an ideal world manifests as a personal conversation via own-brand digital channels. see more

Managing Partner at Wayfare Ventures LLC
The need for both a person and for systems to make sense of diverse data has risen from a tactic to a strategy during these recent years. It isn't just the relatively low hanging fruit of analyzing data trapped within the PMS, CRS, CRM systems deployed at the property or in the cloud or within the corporate system, it is data about competitors' occupancy, pricing strategies and more that requires thoughtful outreach. I struggle with the term "data scientist," knowing that the "IT" person usually describes a job akin to a mechanic focused upon keeping the trains running, not pushing for new routes to serve expanded opportunities. Soon, there will be a need for three positions reporting to the CIO of larger groups: IT (the mechanic), RT (robot technologist), and DT (data technologist.) The DT role will become more important over time as the one to support growth of the organization.

Adjunct Professor NYU Tisch Center for Hospitality and Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant
The technology and data fragmentation in hospitality is a huge challenge and impediment to the post-COVID rebound the industry faces today. Data - guest data, comp set and market BI data - lives in multiple "data islands" that do not talk to each other: PMS, CRS, WBE, CRM, ORM, CMS, DMS, Social Media, and BI. Practically, no hotel company can boast a single view guest data that is being constantly refreshed and enriched with real-time, “live” data feeds from ALL touchpoints with the traveler and their Digital Customer Journey. see more

Professor at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
Data scientists or “Data whisperers” will be a key part of successful hotels in the future. Data-driven decisions will become the norm and gut feeling and the “we have always done it that way” will disappear. As we are getting better with technology and the acceleration of adoption has happened because of COVID-19, we must start utilizing the data that is available to us both internally and also externally. There is so much publicly available free data that we can already access that could be an excellent starting point. So yes, this position will exist in the future and the early adopters will reap the rewards in these very challenging times.

Technology Executive and Consultant & Past President of HFTP Global
This is a valuable position for all businesses that want to make the shift to data-driven decision making, but is certainly a critical position for any medium or large business. Quite often, though, the role of a data scientist is misunderstood. Data scientists are not "report writers" - they need a deep understanding of your entire business and must be able to interpret the data in all your disparate systems. They should be well-versed in database design, math, statistics, and programming - languages like python and R are critical, as is the ability to write complex SQL queries. see more

Executive Vice President & CEO at Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG)
I think a Data Scientist will be essential at the hotel level. Unfortunately, this is going to be the hottest and priciest labor category in the market. So, maybe the brands will be able to afford a few of them and configure toolsets to make the insights actionable at the hotel level. Software solution companies will also employ data scientists so their solutions also remain competitive and actionable. So, over time the configuration and choice of the toolset will have baked in the “smarts” of these data scientists. Others on property are going to be taught the ways of these jedi data scientists and in the future, all of the hotel teams and staff will need to interpret and utilize data for the guest experience.

Assistant Controller/IT Director & HR Administrator at Highpointe Hotel Corporation
“Data Scientist” – That is perfect term to describe my job for the last two (2) months. You see the Hotel Development Company where I work is trading in three (3) legacy systems (Time & Attendance, Payroll & Human Resources & Employee Benefits) for a shiny new Human Capital Management (HCM) System. see more