Hotelbeds supports big data ‘Datathon’ for Madrid masters students

Hotelbeds supports big data ‘Datathon’ for Madrid masters students

Former Tui-owned bed bank Hotelbeds supported a Datathon competition run by the IE Business School in its home city of Madrid.

Former Tui-owned bed bank Hotelbeds supported a Datathon competition run by the IE Business School in its home city of Madrid.

In total 60 students from the Masters in Big Data & Analytics course took part, with the winner chosen by an expert jury of drawn from TAB (Transfer & Activity Bank).

Hotelbeds Group launched the competition to the masters students in April and supplied sample data for the challenge.

It challenged them to apply Big Data technologies and advanced analytics to a sample of TAB business data to segment clients to better serve them.

The winning team was chosen “for its capacity to take critical decisions, providing clear documentation and using a logical selection of data and variables”.

Along with two other teams, they will now work on an analytics project in which they will make the most of the huge amount of data available in order to improve the way the company works with suppliers and clients.

Álvaro de Nicolás, Hotelbeds Group chief technology officer, said: “Big Data is business as usual for us. Hotelbeds is the World’s largest bedbank.

“Every second we receive more than six thousand requests. All this information is very valuable, both for us and for our clients and suppliers, given that we can see the evolution of worldwide tourism markets months in advance – both in terms of destinations and prices.”

Paul Anthony, TAB’s managing director, added: “In TAB we’re constantly innovating and iterating and we strive to attract the brightest and best people to help us consolidate our business.”