Hospitality data intelligence sees broader usage amidst industry developments, says STR’s Palmqvist

Currently overseeing teams across several countries, Jesper Palmqvist has been leading hospitality analytics firm STR in Asia Pacific as a Senior Director since 2013.

In the organisation, he grows and services the renowned STR data set under the CoStar Group banner, whilst simplifying the numbers through storytelling for clear decision-making across hospitality and investment companies.

His expertise spans across hospitality, online travel and IT, via the supplier and aggregator side in IT startups and regional hotel chains. This helps him to be able to frequently present and discuss the latest trends and updates at industry events, and provide insights for media outlets across the region.

As part of the distinguished panel of judges for the inaugural year of the TDM Travel Excellence Awards Thailand 2024, Palmqvist ponders upon the evolution of the hospitality data landscape and the enhancement of data-driven decision making within the industry. He also shares his insights on unique challenges and opportunities in the markets he has worked at, as well as how it reflects the current state of travel and hospitality.

Since taking the helm at STR for the Asia Pacific region, how have you seen the hospitality data landscape evolve, particularly in response to changes in travel patterns and market demands?

The pace of change has definitely picked up, particularly in areas where we would historically say it was more traditional or ‘less mature,’ creating a more level playing field around the region. We also have much more travel to new destinations and experiences, and in addition, sustainability in travel has finally become an important topic also in Asia Pacific, in terms of investment and operations in hotels. After a period of both development and M&A activity, as owners and investors over time continue to grow portfolio and interest in the hotel asset class, it also brought a more up-to-date operational skillset, wherein data intelligence was used more broadly and frequently.

Whilst the STAR compset insights from STR has been a staple report for decades by revenue managers, what we see these days is that across all stakeholders, from owner, GM, sales, developer, finance and more, all are involved and we see much broader usage now, for example, including our P&L data, forward-looking occupancy and global census or pipeline info, and more frequent value from our CoStar product. People need this at their fingertips, and they are more ready than ever to consume broader data sets. We hear this from many of our partners.

With your extensive background across various sectors including hospitality, online travel, and IT, how do you integrate these diverse experiences to enhance data-driven decision-making in the hospitality industry?

We are fortunate as a company to overlap well with many different stakeholders in a few different industries, as our work is to democratise and enable data across commercial real estate, hospitality and residential.

As such, we have created very strong relationships with our clients and partners around the world and the scope of our conversations and services touch all those areas and more, and personally for me, it has been very helpful to have had experience more broadly.

Having said that, I learn so much every single day, which is why I am enjoying my work and our business so much — along with having fabulous colleagues.

As the Senior Director for Asia Pacific, you manage teams across several key markets including China, Japan, Australia, and Southeast Asia. What unique challenges and opportunities does each of these markets present?

It is quite common that I have to explain these nuances since Asia Pacific just does not behave cohesively to the same degree as some other regions globally. Whilst it is helping that less ‘mature’ tourism and travel markets are developing quickly, we often have to study areas separately for trends and also what needs clients have as they vary, but that is also what makes our life so much fun.

Beyond obvious things like language, business culture and travel patterns coming from logistics and general development, for instance in large and domestically driven markets like India, China and Indonesia, require specific focus to really capture the opportunity, when comparing to more inbound-dependent markets – something very telling as businesses recovered from the pandemic.

No doubt travel and tourism is growing, and one challenge can sometimes be an imbalance between the strong pace of development and much needed investment ensuring all other services keep up.

You often discuss the latest trends and updates at industry events. What are some of the most intriguing insights you have shared recently, and how do they reflect the current state of travel and hospitality?

For me right now, I talk a lot about how markets carry both stability and volatility, where in the former case we have regained stability in less dramatic shifts in growth in occupancy and hotel rates, seasonality is back, the balance between weekday or weekend travel has also largely returned.

Most of the current volatility comes from new source markets as airlift is both different and for many, less than before, but also importantly that profit margins are regularly threatened by growth in cost, particularly in labour. As hotel revenue in hotels are generally high due to higher rates, that growth has subsided, which leads to a higher need for diligent cost control in hotels to keep profitability steady.

Overall, 2023 was the first good year in a long time, and even if 2024 is not bad, growth is slowing down, in part also due to new hotel supply peaking in the past couple of years.

As a judge for the TDM Travel Excellence Awards 2024, what specific factors do you consider when assessing the innovative use of data in travel and hospitality nominations?

As it is more and more competitive these days, I am keen to see how solutions can efficiently simplify day-to-day life for all stakeholders.

There is no magic bullet, no one portal or one provider that can provide all solutions, and for that reason, intra-connectivity, simplification and strong value proposition remains important in both old and new data and tech providers.

Scale matters in many ways, but there is still certainly room for more local and smaller solutions as well, that entrepreneurial spirit is so vibrant and important across Asia Pacific, and that is where we often find true innovation to build upon.