Away Resorts operates holiday parks in the UK, with parks in Cornwall, the New Forest, Isle of Wight and the Welsh Coast. The business sells both holiday homes and holidays.

Away Resorts needed a business-wide ability to look at data to improve how it operated its parks and increase sales. “We had different lines of the business doing their own thing, and pulling data from the same sources but analysing it in their own way. Different teams would often get into issues about whose analysis of performance was the correct view,” says Mohammed Muddasar, Head of Commercial Analytics at Away Resorts.

Mohammed created a proof of concept to demonstrate how a group-wide approach to data would help Away Resorts. Gaining better insight into bookings and park utilisation would significantly benefit the business. By understanding bookings, Away Resorts can better plan for future capacity at the parks. “I sit in the commercial team, but we knew that data had to be something for everyone in Away Resorts to use, so I took a holistic approach,” Mohammed says.

Away Resorts continues to evolve its platform with Telefónica Tech’s “Established” managed service for the data platform. The primary focus is delivering a proactive support service ensuring that the data platform is available and refreshed with the latest data from across the Away Resorts estate daily. With the Telefónica Tech managed service, Away Resorts benefits from responsive support, reporting on performance and operations, and recommendations for improved Azure consumption management.

Through the support and on-going development competency provided by the Telefónica Tech Managed Services team, Away Resorts has identified enhancements and new areas of analysis within its data platform. Now in its third year of operation, the Telefónica Tech managed service is delivering new capabilities on a weekly basis to ensure Away Resorts processes are optimised. Telefónica Tech offers real end-to-end capabilities that extend beyond the initial data platform project. Mohammed says working with Telefónica Tech provides Away Resorts with regular access to data and analytics insight. “We can always pick their brains, and they are really happy to share their knowledge.”

“We now have a really rich and detailed analysis of our business, which is helping in areas like revenue and marketing. In marketing, for example, they are using Google Analytics data to accurately analyse web views with actual conversions,” Mohammed says. There are six reports that 170 members of Away Resorts access, with 15 members of the business able to build their own specialist reports. This is a new development made possible by the new easy access to data. “We are now able to see how our subletting penetration is doing in parallel with the property sales,” he says.

Operational teams can now manage the park and home maintenance according to the insights gleaned from the data platform. “These are the people who make a real difference to our customers,” Mohammed says. As the park teams complete maintenance, they can make updates, which means the central operations teams can accurately view how many units are available to holidaymakers.

Away Resorts has now successfully implemented a third-party automated pricing solution (delivered as part of the ongoing managed service) as a hotel revenue management tool. To work effectively, it requires accurate data and real-time access. Mohammed says Away Resorts was only able to successfully deploy the third-party automated pricing solution as a result of the master data management work carried out by Telefónica Tech. Providing reliable, good quality data, the third-party automated pricing solution has enabled Away Resorts to move to an automated pricing model.

Becoming data-centric benefited Away Resorts in managing the impact of pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions. The pandemic led to significant fluctuations in the domestic travel market. Mohammed says that without the analytics capability, Away Resorts would have been too slow to respond to capacity changes due to travel restrictions. For example, “analytics helped us be more agile as the insight was never that far away.”