Today, companies have the option of collecting information about consumers which was never available in the past. This information is collected through internal sources, such as company websites and sales records, and external ones, such as social media, smartphones and tablets. This vast amount of information on consumers is increasingly referred to as big data. When a consumer visits a website for the first time, cookies are sometimes uploaded on his browser containing a unique ID, making it possible for the company to identify him during his next visits. Once identified, it will be possible to link the consumer to all information the company stored about his profile, which makes personalized marketing possible. Today, because of prescriptive analytics models embedded into their operational systems, websites and apps can analyze consumer information in real time in order to offer personalized travel options instantly. In the next few years, we will witness a gradual move to 1-to-1 marketing in the online travel category, with each consumer treated in a different way in terms of the whole marketing mix. To know more about this visit:

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2014/05/big-data-unique-ids-and-prescriptive-analytics-revolutionising-online-travel-marketing-part-1.html  .