Adobe and Hilton reveal analytics challenge student winners

Image credit: Adobe Stock/BillionPhotos.com.

Earlier this month, we revealed our partnership with global hospitality brand Hilton for the 2022 Adobe Analytics Challenge. This marked the 18th annual competition, held virtually for the third consecutive year, and thousands of student applications were received from college campuses across 24 countries.

The competition was narrowed down to six finalist university teams, comprised of competitors from 42 nationalities, who were challenged to uncover deep data insights around the Hilton online customer journey for business, leisure — and “bleisure” guests. Finalists used Adobe Customer Journey Analytics to discover meaningful customer insights and present engagement strategies targeted towards the traveler segments.

After a rigorous judging process, with a 5-person panel that included Hilton executives and industry luminaries, we’re thrilled to announce the winners for this year’s challenge!

The winners

Three female competitors hailing from the University of Maryland took home the top prize of $35,000. We congratulate I-Ju Lin, Chu-Hsuan Tsao and Yiling Kang from team “Young Intelligent Talent” who impressed the judges with their data-driven insights.

With Adobe’s analytics tools, they examined the cross-device customer journey of those booking travel with Hilton — pulling anonymized data from a portfolio of 18 brands and over 7,000 properties worldwide — to understand how consumers are making purchase decisions digitally across devices. Since the information provided by Hilton was anonymized, no personal information was shared with Adobe or the students as part of the competition.

The winning team was competing against an impressive set of finalists stemming from Université d'Angers in France, the University of Chicago, Utah State University, the University of California at Davis and Brigham Young University. Ultimately, their recommendations on increasing online bookings and customer loyalty impressed the judges and merited the 1st place finish.

Why a digital customer experience is key

Winners found the key to boosting online conversation rates (i.e., the number of visitors who take action on the website) lies in digital investment. In a post-pandemic world, a robust digital presence is key for businesses to be successful with rapidly changing consumer expectations and booking patterns. Hilton’s website serves as a digital front door for its brand, which is why the company invests in creating a smooth and seamless online experience.

By attracting new customers to its site, including those regularly booking travel through 3rd party agencies, Hilton has an opportunity to share unique deals and benefits targeted towards different types of travelers.

A new type of travel

One of the main challenges student competitors were faced with this year was understanding emerging travel trends. The past few years have seen a dramatic evolution of how we work, and today, hotel guests are working from anywhere (the beach, pool, hotel rooms, etc.). That means there is a new travel segment of consumers mixing business trips with leisure — “bleisure” travelers — that Hilton would like to understand better.

Using Adobe’s Customer Journey Analytics, the winning team used data to show the significance of a strong digital presence in reaching new target audiences, and ways to entice potential customers to book travel directly through Hilton’s website.

Shaping future marketers

The winning team’s insights prove useful for the hospitality industry today as it captures the value of customer engagement and digital-first marketing in an uncertain business environment that requires brands to quickly adapt to customer needs. We’re thrilled to provide students the opportunity to build their data-driven skills, while also rewarding them with $60,000 total in cash prizes.

“This group of passionate and engaged future marketing and technical leaders inspire us and help provide valuable new insights on how to create an even more frictionless travel experience for our guests as they dream, explore and book with us online,” said Jess Petitt, senior vice president of commercial strategy, insights and analytics at Hilton. “We cannot wait to see where these talented individuals go in their careers.”

To see the winning pitch and all the finalist presentations, visit AdobeAnalyticsChallenge.com.