Putting Big Data to work in tourism

The Hupi start-up is going to put its expertise in big data processing to work, analysing reviews of clients published on the Internet pertaining to various tourist establishments. This effort is a partnership between several businesses in the Goazen Tourism Cluster.

The representatives of the Hupi start-up were invited to GOazen’Lab last January. This seminar organized by the Basque Country tourism cluster and attracting around forty companies from the tourism sector, was on “insights into current trends and opportunities” and “ideas for individual and collective solutions”.

Created at Izarbel Technology Park, Hupi has produced a platform for processing large volumes of data from multiple sources. This new big data business was showcased during the seminar. At the end of 2016, Hupi was a prize-winner in the fourth “Innovation Workshop” call for projects organised by the former Côte Basque Adour Urban Authority, with a project called “analysis of feelings using machine learning”. Following this distinction, they teamed up with the owners of the Goazen Cluster.

The idea is to apply this analysis of feelings to the tourism sector. “The operation involves mining client reviews on the internet for a dozen Basque Country establishments who have agreed to help test the system. It will record the reviews and determine whether they are positive or negative in order to track each establishment’s reputation. The more reviews the system saves, the more it will learn – that’s the whole principle of “machine learning” explains Pierre Mendiboure, one of Hupi’s managers.

The study will be submitted in May 2017 and for the two following summer seasons, the service will be available for free. The goal then will be to improve the method, to be able to offer a competitive decision-making tool for tourism professionals. This new product from the Hupi platform could then be put on the market.

Find out more: www.hupi.fr/category/temoignages/