Indian consumers prefer holiday abroad this festive season, IBM …

Indian consumers prefer holiday abroad this festive season, IBM …

Bangalore : A new IBM Social Sentiment analysis of 250,000  online  conversations  reveals  the  travel  preferences of Indian consumers  –  which  point to consumer interest and enthusiasm for spending holidays  abroad.  The preferred international holiday destination for 2013 is London and preferred domestic holiday destination is Goa

According   to  the  latest  IBM  Social  Sentiment  analysis,  travel  and hospitality  was  trending as high as 33 percent of all social conversation tracked, indicating a particularly high volume of discussions about flying, driving  and  vacation  with  family  and  friends,  among others.  The IBM “Desire  Ratio”  –  the  proportion  of positive versus negative comments – indicates  that  59  percent  of  people  are  “looking  forward” to taking vacation this December.

Diving  deeper  into  the  social  dialogue,  ‘destinations’ emerged as the dominant  theme being discussed. Positive sentiment associated with ‘luxury destinations’  also  showed  a  huge surge. People’s choices for travel and vacation  destinations  primarily  revolved  around service and experience, while  price  was  a  key  driver  when  it comes to hospitality and travel agents.

In  the  era  of  Big Data, amidst the explosion of social media, measuring public  sentiment  through  social listening can help travel industry chief marketing  officers  tap  real  time  trends  and  customize incentives and services  to be more in tune with what customers are asking for, using data to  tailor  their  offerings  to  address  fast-moving trends and real time customer needs.

“Measuring social sentiment has the potential to enable the travel industry to design travel offers and services tailored to what travelers are telling us,”  said  Dr  Lata  Iyer,  Partner, Global Business Services, IBM India & South  Asia.  “Big  data  has the power to offer new insights to the travel industry  including  airlines,  hotels  and other travel providers that can translate   customer  desires  into  irresistible  offers  that  they  will welcome.”

The IBM Social Sentiment Index combines sophisticated analytics and natural language  processing  technologies  to  gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter,  blogs,  message  boards and other social media. In this instance, the  Index  was  used  to  measure and understand consumer views around the holiday  travel  season  in  the  India  from  the  period of September 1 – December 12 in 2013.

Additional insights from the IBM Social Sentiment Index for holiday travel include:

Top travel preference – International destinations received the most       buzz  (32  percent)  on all social media channels. London is the most mentioned  destination  city,  while  Thailand  emerged  as  the most recurring country in social conversations.

Preferred Indian cities – Goa is the ‘buzziest’ travel destination in India,  followed  by  Delhi-Agra-Jaipur  and Golden-Temple. Taj Mahal  followed  by  Golden-Temple is top most mentioned monuments in social media  content.  Beaches  and  palaces  are  top  places  to visit on   people’s  vacation  agendas. Kerala tops the charts for being the top trending state in India.

Luxury travel drives positivity- Luxury establishments garnered both  very high affinity with positive sentiments and highest proportion of positive sentiments.

Up in the air on air travel – For a mode of transportation air travel  has highest proportion      of     negative sentiments.

The wealth of online content around travel from public conversations on social media has become very influential in how people determine their travel plans. Understanding the positive, neutral and negative nuances of their conversations and who is influential can help airlines, hoteliers and other travel service providers market better products and services to their customers.

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Indian consumers prefer holiday abroad this festive season, IBM …

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