Could Google or Amazon End Up Owning the Traveler Profile? – PhoCusWright

Who Owns The Customer

Discussions around who owns the customer are not new, with the idea of portable profiles often mooted at conferences.

But what if it was a big brand such as Amazon, Google or even Booking.com?

Andy Owen Jones, co-founder and CEO of data and personalization specialist bd4travel, says that over time, who owns the customer profile is going to change.

“At the moment everyone is trying to own their own profile, and I’ll think you’ll see some shared profiles coming up with customers owning their own profiles and giving access to those profiles.”

He adds that a situation with an “objective third party” owning the profile could also arise, akin to credit scores with Experian.

Owen Jones, who was speaking at the Travel Forward Conference at World Travel Market in London this week, also believes the sharing of data will be much easier once people own their profiles and are prepared to open up access to them.

He says to get things truly working seamlessly between companies, the industry needs “interoperability of profiles” as well as technology standards. 

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