21 August 2014 | travelweekly.co.uk business Essential news, comment and analysis TOP STORY


PwC’s Matthew Tod: ‘We have more data and analytical ability – there is no excuse for not participating’


‘WE’RE IN A GOLDEN AGE’


BIG DATA: BIG DATA CAN


PROVIDE BIG INSIGHTS BUT NEED NOT INCUR BIG COSTS, PWC’S MATTHEWTOD


TELLS IAN TAYLOR


Big data could bring “a second Age of Enlightenment”, according to PwC partner Matthew Tod, an expert in digital analytics. “We’ll understand what is going on in our world much better,” he argues. It will “turn the lights on”. But businesses need to act fast,


he says, not just because they risk being left behind but because it may become more difficult to extract data. “The next Data Protection Act


64 • travelweekly.co.uk — 21 August 2014


will give consumers the right to be forgotten by companies,” said Tod. “A directive is working its way


through Europe now. When this becomes law it will become more difficult to track visitors. There will be more protocols. “We may well now be in a golden age of big data. The regulators and consumer behaviour will catch up.” Tod, who will address Abta’s


Travel Convention in Ljubljana, Slovenia, next month on ‘the


power of data’, said: “We have more data and more analytical ability and there is no excuse for not participating. The costs have fallen to $1,000 a year using something like Amazon Web Services. Google Analytics is free.” But he added: “The whole thing


around ‘big data’ is a red herring. Every time a customer loads a page it generates 20-30 data points. Everyone has big data.”


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