As the temperature rises, the number of people traveling to enjoy the flowers increases, and the demand for booking air tickets and hotels is strong again. Some users encounter different mobile phones for the same flight**, the same hotel** at the same time**, and even the more expensive the air ticket is searched. Most people's first reaction is to encounter "big data killing".
However, are these situations all big data killing? Under the increasingly strict supervision of regulatory authorities at all levels, does the platform still dare to kill with big data? The reporter recently interviewed a number of industry insiders to further understand the difference between the tourism platform and try to find the truth of "big data killing".
It seems to be "ripe".
In fact, it is "cache**" or dynamic price adjustment
For the search for air tickets and the payment of ** inconsistency, or when searching for air tickets and booking hotels, after a few minutes it is found that *** more and more expensive "situation. A staff member of a travel platform said that this situation is mostly caused by "** cache" or dynamic price adjustment.
He explained that the tickets issued by airlines will be unified into the GDS (Global Distribution System), and China's GDS is mainly "TravelSky". When users search for and purchase air tickets, **merchants, **travel platforms, etc. need to "retrieve" information such as ticket inventory and ** from GDS. "For example, if someone searches for air tickets from Hangzhou to Chengdu on the travel platform, the travel platform will retrieve data from TravelSky to check the inventory and the latest **. However, if the data is retrieved every time you search, the cost will be very high, and the platform usually makes a cache of the retrieved data, and different users may see the cached data retrieved at different times when searching. However, when the user pays, the platform will confirm the ticket price twice, which may cause inconsistencies between the user's inquiry and the purchase**. ”
He pointed out that "the ** of the ticket is changed by the airline in real time according to the load factor, and the ticketing platform refreshes the ticket ** and inventory at a certain frequency, and the refresh delay may also cause the ** seen on the two mobile phones to be different." ”
For the situation of "the more you search, the more expensive it is", he said that there are many or even a large number of users searching for the same route on the travel platform at the same time, and in the peak tourist season, the cheapest sub-cabin that users have seen before may be preempted by other users in a few seconds, leaving only more expensive tickets. It is worth noting that this sub-class is not business class or economy class, but a sub-class with different discounts launched by airlines. Taking Air China as an example, economy class alone includes 15 sub-classes, and most of the discounts and change fees are different for different classes.
A similar situation also occurs in hotel bookings, "for the same date, the same hotel and the same room type, the platform will give priority to displaying low-cost resources of the same product in combination with product supporting policies and quality indicators." When the low-priced resources of the same product are sold out, only the more advanced resources are left to be sold on the platform. ”
In fact, whether it is a flight ticket ** or a hotel**, it is a dynamic pricing model that dynamically changes according to the relationship between supply and demand. When the demand decreases, air tickets and hotels will also decline to varying degrees. For example, in the off-season after the Spring Festival, domestic and international routes have single-digit and double-digit ** air tickets. The more frequent the changes during peak periods, even a few seconds apart, the more users see **.
Industry insider: The platform has no motive
"Kill ripe" does not have pricing power
An industry insider said that the travel platform has no motive for big data to kill ripeness. First of all, whether it is a flight ticket, a hotel, or a homestay, it is not decided by the platform party, but by the first party of the commodity - airlines, hotels and related businesses. Secondly, selling expensive and cheap has little impact on the platform, especially the change in air tickets does not affect the platform's income.
Since 2016, the policy stipulates that the handling fee of air tickets has been changed from a certain percentage of rebates to fixed fees, and the platform sells an economy class ticket, whether it is thousands of yuan or hundreds of yuan, the platform gets the same **fee.
From the perspective of the overall environment, in recent years, the laws, regulations and standards on big data killing have been continuously improved, and the collection and use of personal information by enterprises have also been regulated, and the public and regulatory authorities have paid more and more attention to big data killing. In this case, the awareness of compliance operation of tourism platforms, especially leading enterprises, has been further enhanced. A person related to a travel platform said that even from an economic point of view, the tourism platform will not use big data to kill ripeness. With the recovery of the tourism industry, it is enough to make money by selling products and services formally, and there is no need to take the risk of "defying the law" to make small profits.
Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Kun.