Recently, representatives from Buxton and our client, Marriott, visited Wharton as part of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative Executive in Residence series. The series brings leaders in the field of customer analytics to meet with students in one-on-one coffee chats and guest lectures.
Jack Hall, Buxton vice president of account management, Chris Briggs, Buxton senior vice president of client experience, and Eric Jacobs, chief development officer for Marriott International – US and Canada, spoke with students about the use of customer analytics in hotel development.
Hall talked about Buxton’s mission of providing an analytics tool that consistently provides good answers, noting that once clients feel confident in the analytics, using “it becomes more routine” and it is integrated into their decision-making processes.
While predictive analytics give hotel developers a good indication of market opportunities based on forecasted demand, Jacobs noted that “there’s a science to this, and then there’s an art to this… you still have to do the art of the deal.” The combination of analytics and local market knowledge has helped Marriott to expand its Fairfield Inn & Suites brand with confidence.
Many thanks to WCAI for hosting Buxton and Marriott!
To learn more about WCAI, please visit the WCAI website.