Based in Vevey, Switzerland, m1nd-set is the world’s leading travel research agency. They primarily serve the travel retail, airline, and airport research and consulting sectors by conducting over 1,000 qualitative and quantitative research studies.

Founded in 2007, m1nd-set has helped clients, many of them Fortune 500 companies, navigate the ever-changing travel and retail landscape. They understand well the value of data in decision-making, and their specialty is providing clients with the research, analysis and recommendations they need to operate more effectively and intelligently.

While m1nd-set has evolved though many market shifts over the years, the global COVID-19 pandemic changed their industry unlike anything before. The pause in normal travel activity certainly brought many shifts, and m1nd-set began a shift of their own as they stepped more firmly into the travel retail space.

Analytics as a Competitive Advantage

A big service that m1nd-set provides its travel retail clients is extensive qualitative and quantitative research studies. This can come in the form of detailed customer surveys, focus groups and more, and they’re always very tailored to each client’s unique needs and goals. This is crucial because there are many parameters and limitations placed on retailers in locations like airports. Even minor shifts in what and how these retailers sell within these spaces have a big impact on their overall profitability. As such, any analytical advantage or insight makes a meaningful difference.

As m1nd-set delved deeper into the travel retail space, they noticed several patterns in the type of information sought by their clients as well as the way it was presented to them. While there will always be a significant portion of their business dedicated to in-depth research presented via more manual modes, they recognized the opportunity to create a new subscription-based product for their clientele that would allow for a more self-service approach to viewing their most vital KPIs.

The Platform: Tableau + Curator by InterWorks

When it comes to uncovering and presenting valuable insights from data, Tableau provides an exponential boost for organizations in terms of visibility and efficiency. The ability to build repeatable structures, especially when it comes to highlighting high-level KPIs that are shared among most of their clients, was especially useful. Tableau was already being used at m1nd-set to some degree, but it was an essential building block in their new subscription service. However, they quickly realized they needed some additional functionality to deliver insights that were still consistent with their personal touch. Namely, they needed advanced filtering and data extraction capabilities, but they also sought a means of customizing the portal in which their Tableau dashboards were delivered. That’s where Curator by InterWorks plays a vital role.

“The interesting thing about Curator is that we can choose which clients see which data by creating specific pages or filters. This is important because they can then subscribe to whatever is most relevant to them.”

–  Leila Fennan, Junior Consultant in Market Research, m1nd-set

With the help of the InterWorks team, m1nd-set quickly set up their new solution and began rolling it out to their clients. Since their pivot during COVID, they’ve seen a steady increase in subscriptions to their client portal. As of 2025, this product primarily shows clients two blocks of information: customer traffic data and customer behavior data. While these insights can certainly be found manually, there is massive convenience in seeing them all in a single-pane view.

Beyond the external use case and benefit of their client portal, the m1nd-set team has also found added benefit in using the portal themselves. Regardless of whether a client has a subscription to the client portal or not, their team can use it to compile valuable reports. The client portal does a great job of saving their time by answering the most fundamental questions clients have about their data, but it also serves as an easier bridge to more bespoke research services provided by the m1nd-set team.

The Bottom Line

Overall, the combination of Tableau and Curator has been a boon to m1nd-set’s business. It’s given them another tool to serve their clients in a meaningful way, which is crucial as they are a smaller organization that competes against much larger entities. By finding new ways to produce and present data, they’ve developed a competitive advantage that’s consistent with their boutique approach to personalized research and analytics.