AusLeisure

For Resorts World Sentosa, customer data is vital in providing valuable insights that allows it to better plan and strategise its operations.

Spanning 49 hectares, RWS is located on Singapore's Sentosa island and houses a casino, several hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, a convention centre and the Universal Studios Singaporetheme park.

With a site this expansive and varied, gathering customer insights - such as when they visit the resort and how they spend their time in the resort - will enable the company's sales, marketing and customer service teams to plan their operations more effectively.

In an interview with ZDNet Asia, RWS' Senior Vice President of Innovation & Technology Yap Chee Yuen explained "big data and business analytics are important in this respect. They will aggregate and summarise customer information, and provide an intuitive tool for our business users to access this information."

Yap explains that the next phase of the company's IT strategy will look at utilising business analytics to process information collected from key transactional systems in the resort, including ticketing systems, the casino and hotel systems, and POS (point of sales) systems at the its F&B outlets.

RWS will also continue to drive its mobile strategy, following the July launch of its Apple iPodOS app. The mobile app includes a map to help visitors find their way around the resort, as well as a directory of its dining outlets. Used inside the resort, the iOS app also provides real-time information on the queue times of rides in Universal Studios so visitors can better gauge how long they will have to wait before getting on the ride.

According to Yap, the iOS app was designed to improve visitors' experience in the resort and allow them to better plan their activities.

RWS will be adding more interactive services in the mobile app, including a loyalty reward and redemption service, as well as online booking capabilities for the resort's range of entertainment options. There are also plans to include support for other platforms such as Google's Android, he added.

While Yap has big plans to improve business efficiencies, he is challenged by the scale and complexity of managing systems and data that are so distinct across the company's different operations.

Yap concludes "vendors need to understand the scale and complexity of our operations. But, at the same time, the skills of IT professionals in this industry sector are scarce. There just aren't many gaming IT professionals in Singapore.

"The knowledge of the vendors is also limited. So there's a lot of education, learning and training (needed) in the implementation of our ICT initiatives."
Eileen Yu , ZDNet Asia

29th September 2011 - RESORT WORLD SENTOSA TO ENHANCE DOLPHIN CARE 

30th November 2010 - SINGAPORE EXPECTS RECORD 12 MILLION VISITORS THIS YEAR 

8th September 2010 - SINGAPORE SPORTS HUB DEAL SIGNED

19th July 2010 - ASIAN ATTRACTIONS EXPO MOVES TO SINGAPORE IN 2011

24th May 2010 - US GAMING COMPANY BETS LARGE ON SINGAPORE AND ASIA

29th April 2010 - GLOBAL STUDY SHOWS RESILIENCE IN THE THEME PARK INDUSTRY

10th June 2009 - RESORTS WORLD AT SENTOSA ON TRACK FOR 2010 OPENING

Support our industry news service
We hope that you value the news that we publish so while you're here can we ask for your support?

As an independent publisher, we need reader support for our industry news gathering so ask that - if you don't already do so - you back us by subscribing to the printed Australasian Leisure Management magazine and/or our online news.