How to Turn Customer Data Into Real Traveler Recognition

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.

For travel brands, personalization is no longer a differentiator — it’s a revenue driver. The ability to recognize and respond to customers in real time now shapes everything from conversion to long-term loyalty. Yet despite years of investment, most still struggle to unify customer data at scale.

New research from Skift and Amperity, based on insights from 350+ travel leaders, outlines how travel brands are moving from fragmented data to real-time personalization — and what it takes to do it successfully.

See what it takes to turn customer data into real-time recognition and measurable results.

SkiftX spoke with Amperity co-founder and CTO Derek Slager about how leading travel brands are building the data foundations that make personalization, AI, and loyalty actually work.

SkiftX: Personalization has become a baseline expectation in travel. What does it really take to deliver on it at scale?

Derek Slager: The most important driver of great personalization is a high-quality, trusted data foundation. You can’t personalize without knowing who your customer is. That sounds simple, but it’s the hardest part. Brands need a single, unified view of their customers that’s accurate, accessible, and continually updated. Without that foundation, every other layer of personalization is built on shaky ground.

Where is the biggest disconnect between how much leaders value customer data and how well they can actually use it?

It’s easy to say the right things about data, but hard to do them. Many executives are eager to launch AI tools or new personalization programs before addressing the underlying data issues that make those initiatives successful. True readiness means connecting data across fragmented systems and building a foundation that can support the complexity of modern personalization.

Many brands rely heavily on loyalty data, but that leaves much of their traveler base invisible. How can companies get a more complete picture?

Loyalty growth may be a key goal, but not every consumer starts there. Everyone in the loyalty program has one thing in common: at some point, they weren’t in it. The real opportunity is to deeply understand each customer’s journey and use data to guide them along that path in an elegant, natural way. When brands focus on those journeys, not just on existing members, they’re much better positioned to grow loyalty and drive long-term customer lifetime value.

In Amperity’s research with Skift, more than half of leaders said their marketing is constrained by a lack of unified data. What makes unification so difficult?

Unifying data is far more complex than simply bringing it together in one place. You need a flexible, intelligent system that can reconcile data from multiple sources – bookings, loyalty, CRM, operations, even surveys – where there’s often no single ground truth. The best brands recognize that they’ll always need different views of the customer for different purposes, but those views should be connected through a common, trusted foundation.

Everyone’s talking about AI, but few travel brands feel ready. How does unified customer data help accelerate AI maturity?

AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. The best algorithms can’t compensate for missing or messy information. When brands have unified, high-quality customer data, they can provide AI systems with the right context to generate meaningful insights, make smarter predictions, and personalize in real time. Without that, AI tends to amplify existing gaps rather than close them.

Can you share an example where unified traveler profiles directly led to business outcomes?

Loyalty and trust are often built when something goes wrong. Imagine a traveler whose flight went smoothly according to the operations data, but whose luggage was lost – something only revealed in a post-trip survey. A unified traveler profile connects those dots, giving the brand a full picture of the experience. That context allows teams to respond personally and proactively, turning a potentially negative moment into one that strengthens long-term loyalty.

With privacy concerns rising, how can brands build trust while still using customer data effectively?

Privacy and personalization shouldn’t be in conflict. Great brands respect their customers and use data in ways that are mutually beneficial. Privacy isn’t a tradeoff for personalization – it’s part of the value exchange that builds lasting relationships. When brands treat customer data responsibly and focus on long-term trust, they create a foundation for both loyalty and performance.

How is Amperity helping travel brands close this gap between ambition and execution?

Amperity has spent nearly a decade helping travel brands unify customer data and turn it into business value. We’re passionate about enabling our partners to build direct, data-driven relationships with their travelers based on recognition, trust, and care. Our platform provides the durable data foundation that makes personalization, AI, and loyalty all work better together. When you have that in place, everything else becomes possible.

For more data, insights, and strategies around how to close the personalization gap, download the report from Skift and Amperity.

This content was created collaboratively by Amperity and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.