10 Travel + Leisure SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)
At Travel + Leisure, SQL is used to dive deep into customer travel behavior patterns by analyzing booking data, preferences for destinations, and seasonal travel trends. It helps them tailor marketing campaigns to specific demographics, ensuring they reach the right audience with personalized offers, which is why Travel + Leisure asks SQL problems in interviews for Data Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering jobs.
Thus, to help you practice, here's 10 Travel + Leisure SQL interview questions – able to answer them all?
10 Travel + Leisure SQL Interview Questions
SQL Question 1: Identifying VIP Customers for Travel + Leisure
As data analyst at Travel + Leisure, you have been asked to identify customers who are frequent travelers, and generate the most revenue for the business. These customers will be labeled as VIP users. A VIP user is defined as a user who:
- Has made more than 5 trips in the past month.
- Has average monthly booking cost greater than $5000.
You have been given access to the following two tables:
Example Input:
| booking_id | user_id | booking_date | destination | total_cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | 342 | 2022-06-01 | Bali | $7000 |
| 1002 | 185 | 2022-06-04 | Paris | $5000 |
| 1003 | 342 | 2022-06-14 | Tokyo | $8000 |
| 1004 | 362 | 2022-06-21 | Copenhagen | $6000 |
| 1005 | 342 | 2022-06-26 | Berlin | $6500 |
Example Input:
| user_id | user_name |
|---|---|
| 342 | John Doe |
| 185 | Jane Smith |
| 362 | Tom Johnson |
Your task is to write a SQL query that generates a list of VIP users from the and tables. Include their user ID, name, number of trips they have made in the past month and their average booking cost over the same period.
Answer:
The above query first joins the and tables on the column. It then filters for bookings made in the past month using the and functions.
We then group the results by both and , to aggregate booking data at a user level, and use the clause to enforce the conditions for a VIP user: more than 5 bookings and an average booking cost of over $5000. This gives us a list of VIP users, along with the number of bookings they have made and their average booking cost.
To solve a related customer analytics question on DataLemur's free interactive SQL code editor, try this Microsoft Teams Power User SQL Interview Question:
Explore the news and media from Travel + Leisure Co. to see how they are redefining travel experiences for their customers! Staying informed about their initiatives can give you a better understanding of the evolving travel industry.
SQL Question 2: Department Salaries
You're given a table of Travel + Leisure employee and department salary data. Write a SQL query to find departments where the departments average salary is higher than the company's average salary.
Write a SQL query for this problem interactively on DataLemur:
The answer is LONG – 30+ lines of SQL. You can find a detailed solution with hints here: Department Salaries.
SQL Question 3: Can you explain the meaning of database denormalization?
Denormalization is a technique used to improve the read performance of a database, typically at the expense of some write performance.
By adding redundant copies of data or grouping data together in a way that does not follow normalization rules, denormalization improves the performance and scalability of a database by eliminating costly join operations, which is important for OLAP use cases that are read-heavy and have minimal updates/inserts.
SQL Question 4: Calculate the Average Trip Rating by Destination and Month
You work for the data team at Travel + Leisure. You have a table called , which contains consumer reviews of various holiday destinations. Each row in the table represents one review left by a user and includes the destination of the trip, the date the review was submitted, and a star rating.
The columns of the table are as follows:
- : an integer identifier for the review
- : an integer identifier for the user who left the review
- : the date and time the review was submitted
- : an integer identifier for the destination of the trip that was reviewed
- : an integer between 1 (worst) and 5 (best) indicating how the user rated the trip
Your task is to write a SQL query that calculates the average star rating for each destination, for each month. The result should be ordered by the destination id and the month.
Example Input:
| review_id | user_id | submit_date | destination_id | stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6171 | 123 | 02/15/2022 00:00:00 | 50001 | 4 |
| 7802 | 265 | 02/20/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 4 |
| 5293 | 362 | 03/18/2022 00:00:00 | 50001 | 3 |
| 6352 | 192 | 04/26/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 3 |
| 4517 | 981 | 05/05/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 2 |
Example Output:
| month | destination | avg_stars |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 50001 | 4.00 |
| 2 | 69852 | 4.00 |
| 3 | 50001 | 3.00 |
| 4 | 69852 | 3.00 |
| 5 | 69852 | 2.00 |
Answer:
This SQL query uses the clause to group the rows by month and destination and then uses the function to calculate the average star rating for each group.
To practice another window function question on DataLemur's free interactive coding environment, try this Amazon SQL Interview Question:
SQL Question 5: What is a foreign key?
A foreign key is a field in a database table that links to the primary key of another table, establishing a connection between the two tables. For example, let's analyze Travel + Leisure's Google Ads campaigns data:
:
| ad_id | campaign_id | keyword | click_count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 201 | Travel + Leisure reviews | 120 |
| 2 | 202 | Travel + Leisure pricing | 150 |
| 3 | 101 | buy Travel + Leisure | 65 |
| 4 | 101 | Travel + Leisure alternatives | 135 |
is a foreign key that connects to the of the corresponding Google Ads campaign. This establishes a relationship between the ads and their campaigns, enabling easy querying to find which ads belong to a specific campaign or which campaigns a specific ad belongs to.
The table may also have multiple foreign keys that reference primary keys in other tables. For example, and foreign keys could be used to link each ad to its ad group and the Google Ads account that the campaigns belong to, respectively.
SQL Question 6: Travel and Leisure - Favorite Destinations
Consider a scenario where Travel + Leisure has a database table that contains all the detailed information about each travel booking made by customers. Write a SQL query to identify the top three frequently visited destinations by customers aged between 30 and 50 years for the year 2022. The results should be ordered by popularity (most visited destination to least).
Sample data table :
| booking_id | customer_id | destination | booking_date | customer_age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | 345 | Paris | 2022-01-15 | 35 |
| 102 | 409 | Tokyo | 2022-02-10 | 40 |
| 103 | 362 | Paris | 2022-03-12 | 31 |
| 104 | 234 | Rome | 2022-04-06 | 45 |
| 105 | 876 | Paris | 2022-05-20 | 33 |
Answer:
In PostgresSQL, you would write the following query:
This query first filters the table for the entries with customer ages between 30 to 50 and year of booking as 2022. It then groups the data by the travel destination, counts the frequency of each and orders them in descending order. With the LIMIT clause, it only returns the top 3 most frequently visited destinations.
SQL Question 7: How are and similar, and how are they different?
Both the and window functions are used to access a row at a specific offset from the current row.
However, the function retrieves a value from a row that follows the current row, whereas the function retrieves a value from a row that precedes the current row.
Say you had a table of salary data for Travel + Leisure employees:
| name | salary |
|---|---|
| Amanda | 130000 |
| Brandon | 90000 |
| Carlita | 80000 |
You could use the function to output the salary of each employee, along with the next highest-paid employee:
This would yield the following output:
| name | salary | next_salary |
|---|---|---|
| Amanda | 130000 | 90000 |
| Brandon | 90000 | 80000 |
| Carlita | 80000 | NULL |
Swapping for would get you the salary of the person who made just more than you:
| name | salary | next_salary |
|---|---|---|
| Amanda | 130000 | NULL |
| Brandon | 90000 | 130000 |
| Carlita | 80000 | 90000 |
SQL Question 8: Analyzing Click-Through-Rates for Travel + Leisure Platform
You are a data analyst at Travel + Leisure and your marketing team wants to better understand the performance of their digital advertisements. They are especially interested in knowing the click-through rate (CTR) of their ads and the conversion rates from viewing a listing (such as a hotel or a tour package) to actually booking it.
Example Input:
| click_id | user_id | ad_id | click_date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5674 | 235 | 791 | 07/14/2022 |
| 4321 | 521 | 652 | 07/15/2022 |
| 7654 | 371 | 791 | 07/15/2022 |
| 6543 | 521 | 652 | 07/15/2022 |
| 8531 | 765 | 319 | 07/16/2022 |
Example Input:
| booking_id | user_id | listing_id | booking_date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5923 | 235 | 501 | 07/14/2022 |
| 2344 | 589 | 312 | 07/16/2022 |
| 6234 | 235 | 501 | 07/15/2022 |
| 9123 | 765 | 319 | 07/16/2022 |
| 4725 | 589 | 312 | 07/16/2022 |
Answer:
The following SQL query will find the CTR and the percentage of views that convert to bookings:
This query first calculates the total number of clicks for each ad, and then the total number of bookings made by the same users on the same date they clicked the ad. As a result, it provides a percentage for the conversion rate from click to booking by ad, shedding light on which advertisements are most effective at driving bookings.
To solve a similar SQL problem on DataLemur's free online SQL code editor, try this Meta SQL interview question:
SQL Question 9: Filter Guests based on Destination Preference
As a part of the guest experience team at Travel + Leisure, your task is to improve guest recommendations. To do so, you need to identify the guests who have shown an interest in a particular region, say Asia. Write a SQL query to find all customers whose destination preference includes any country in Asia based on guest booking data.
Assume that we have a table called . The table has 3 columns: , , and .
Example Input:
| id | name | preferred_destination |
|---|---|---|
| 1001 | John Doe | China, Japan, Italy |
| 1002 | Jane Smith | USA, Canada |
| 1003 | Richard Roe | Thailand, India, Germany |
| 1004 | Jane Doe | South Korea, UK |
You should return the names of the guests who have at least one Asian country in their destination preference.
Example Output:
| name |
|---|
| John Doe |
| Richard Roe |
| Jane Doe |
Answer:
This query filters out the rows in the table where the field contains the name of any Asian country. The keyword is used to search for a specified pattern in a column. The sign is used to define wildcards (missing letters) both before and after the pattern. Thus, this query returns the names of the guests who want to visit at least one of the specified Asian countries.
SQL Question 10: Name the different types of joins in SQL. What does each one do?
Joins in SQL allow you to combine data from different tables based on a shared key or set of keys.
Four JOIN types are available in SQL. For an example of each one, say you had sales data exported from Travel + Leisure's Salesforce CRM stored in a PostgreSQL database, and had access to two tables: and .
-
: retrieves rows from both tables where there is a match in the shared key or keys. For example, an between the table and the table would retrieve only the rows where the in the table matches the in the table.
-
: retrieves all rows from the left table (in this case, the table) and any matching rows from the right table (the table). If there is no match in the right table, NULL values will be returned for the right table's columns.
-
: retrieves all rows from the right table (in this case, the table) and any matching rows from the left table (the table). If there is no match in the left table, NULL values will be returned for the left table's columns.
-
: retrieves all rows from both tables, regardless of whether there is a match in the shared key or keys. If there is no match, NULL values will be returned for the columns of the non-matching table.
How To Prepare for the Travel + Leisure SQL Interview
The key to acing a Travel + Leisure SQL interview is to practice, practice, and then practice some more! Besides solving the earlier Travel + Leisure SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ SQL Interview Questions on DataLemur which come from companies like Google, Uber, and Microsoft.
Each SQL question has hints to guide you, full answers and best of all, there is an online SQL coding environment so you can instantly run your SQL query and have it graded.
To prep for the Travel + Leisure SQL interview you can also be a great idea to practice SQL problems from other hospitality and restaurant companies like:
- Light & Wonder SQL questions
- Brinker International SQL questions
- Boyd Gaming SQL questions
- Texas Roadhouse SQL questions
However, if your SQL foundations are weak, forget about diving straight into solving questions – improve your SQL foundations with this free SQL tutorial.
This tutorial covers SQL concepts such as handling strings and math functions in SQL – both of which show up often during Travel + Leisure SQL interviews.
Travel + Leisure Data Science Interview Tips
What Do Travel + Leisure Data Science Interviews Cover?
Besides SQL interview questions, the other types of questions to prepare for the Travel + Leisure Data Science Interview are:
- Statistics & AB Testing Questions
- Coding Questions in Python or R
- Business Sense and Product-Sense Questions
- Machine Learning Questions
- Behavioral Interview Questions
How To Prepare for Travel + Leisure Data Science Interviews?
To prepare for the Travel + Leisure Data Science interview make sure you have a strong understanding of the company's values and mission – this will be key to acing the behavioral interview. For the technical Data Science interviews, get ready by reading Ace the Data Science Interview. The book's got:
- 201 Interview Questions from Facebook, Google & startups
- A Crash Course on Product Analytics, SQL & ML
- Amazing Reviews (1000+ reviews, 4.5-star rating)