Alibaba AI Labs is all set to introduce a robot designed specifically for the hospitality sector, in October this year.

“Alibaba AI Labs’ robot is the next step in the evolution towards smart hotels,” said Chen Lijuan, general manager of Alibaba AI Labs, adding that the development will help “bridge the gap between guest needs and the response time they expect”.

From its deployment in October, the new robot will be able to deliver food or laundry to guests, offering a glimpse into the future of hotel service. Guests can talk to the robot, using voice commands, touch and hand gestures. Its answers are powered by AliGenie, the software behind the Tmall Genie smart speaker made by Alibaba AI Labs.

The robot, slightly under one metre in height, moves at a speed of up to one metre per second. It is cased in aluminium and features multi-sense data functionality, along with parallel computing, for fast responses.

Onboard are a semantic map, autonomous navigation system to identify and dodge obstacles, a communications system to control elevators and facial-recognition technology for ID verification.

The global market for service robots is on the rise. Citing the International Federation of Robotics, Alibaba says there the market is growing between 20 and 25 per cent from 2018 and 2020, with sales during that period totaling around US$27 billion for the professional service segment.

After a trial of the service robot at hotels, AI Labs will determine whether it’s suitable for use in hospitals, restaurants and offices.

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Technology continues to innovate how travellers are preparing for and enjoying their journeys, or how hotels are adapting to their guests’ changing preferences. So far, there has been much hype around travel disruptors such as Airbnb and Uber. However, the continual foray of tech giants into the travel space is what should be grabbing our attention right now.

Competition is actually coming in now from big technology players. The huge growth potential in the online travel space, particularly in Asia-Pacific, is attracting their attention.

Take the case of Google and Alibaba, who are already very much in the travel space. Combine the search engine giant’s complex algorithm with its products like Google Flights, Google Hotel Finder and Google Trips, and you will see how the company is slowly and steadily climbing up the trip-planning funnel. In the $2.3 trillion contributed to the global economy by travel and tourism, Google already has a large share of the pie. The company has been developing travel tools in the last four years, and is even starting to make them official. For instance, Google Flights came out way back in 2011, but they re-designed and launched the tool only in 2015, replete with exciting new features. The company has now made it easier for users to check out important hotel details such as rates, locations and reviews. Google users can also book some hotels directly while searching for particular properties. Moreover, when a user types in a query for a particular destination, Google also displays a list at the top of the page that provides travellers information about popular sightseeing locations.

Image source: Gravity Flow

Alibaba’s Fliggy is not far behind. The company recently announced a joint venture partnership with Marriott International to redefine the travel experience for the hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers traveling abroad and domestically every year. The joint venture will leverage Marriott International’s global portfolio of brands and unparalleled hospitality expertise to revolutionize the travel experience as well as Alibaba’s digital retail leadership and its role as a gateway for international brands to reach over 500 million mobile monthly active users across its platforms. Drawing on resources from both Marriott and Alibaba, the joint venture will manage Marriott’s storefront on Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel service platform. It will also market directly to Alibaba’s customer base, provide a link between Marriott’s loyalty programs and Alibaba’s loyalty program, and support Marriott hotels globally with content, programs and promotions customized for the Chinese traveller.

We can also see non-traditional travel actors in payments space or general online retailing, like the Amazons of the world, developing the travel component. Closer home, Paytm is an example. On the back of raising $1.4 billion from SoftBank, Paytm is making aggressive moves to challenge existing players in verticals like travel and hotels with the help of deep discounts.

And we will keep seeing many others in the space, too. Travel is a very interesting space for many of them as it is accessible for anyone who has online retailing experience. There is definitely a good basis to build a travel marketplace then. Moreover, considering that companies like Apple and Google already own 90 per cent of the mobile ecosystem, it allows these tech giants to easily capture travel data and get insights on what they’re looking for. Plus, the tech companies are heavily leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to draw insights from that data in real time to create optimized results.

Calling attention to the areas that are broken in the current systems is precisely what tech companies are now doing. This, however, does not spell doom for the traditional players. In fact, with tech giants attacking weaknesses, it gives the industry an opportunity to wake up and think about change, thus making them more open to the adoption of new technology. And that is always going to be a win-win for everyone.

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Chinese guests at Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel chain, will soon be able to check in with a quick scan of their facial features.

The Joint Venture of Alibaba Group and Marriott International has announced it is spearheading Marriott International’s facial recognition check-in pilot with Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel service platform, as it aims to continually elevate the travel experience for tech-savvy Chinese travellers.

“We are excited to partner with the joint venture yet again to offer an innovative and convenient check-in alternative for Chinese travellers. Marriott International has a track record of embracing cutting-edge technology to create memorable experiences for guests,” highlighted Henry Lee, COO and MD of Marriott International Greater China and Board Member of the JV. “With technology, our hotel associates can work more efficiently to do what they do best – delivering personalized service to our guests.”

Image source: Channel NewsAsia

With Fliggy’s expertise in facial recognition technology and the joint venture’s hospitality insights, the pilot will kick off from July 2018 at two Marriott International properties in China – Hangzhou Marriott Hotel Qianjiang and Sanya Marriott Hotel Dadonghai Bay, with the goal of global rollout across Marriott International’s properties in the future. This move is set to position Marriott International as a pioneer global hospitality company to offer this seamless check-in experience.

The check-in process can be completed in less than a minute. Chinese guests simply need to scan their IDs, take a photo and input contact details on a self-help machine. The intelligent device will then dispense room key cards after identities and booking information are verified.

Both the companies had announced the establishment of a joint venture last year to redefine the travel experience for the hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers traveling abroad and domestically every year. As incomes rise, China’s middle class is looking for higher quality products and travel experiences. This new technology is perfectly designed to satisfy consumers’ expectations for seamless, integrated, personalized, and convenient travel solutions.

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Chinese Outbound Travel Set to Boom with 700 Million Trips Estimated for the Next Five Years as Consumers Seek New, Elevated Travel Experiences

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (“Alibaba”) (NYSE: BABA) and Marriott International, Inc. (“Marriott International”) (NASDAQ: MAR) announced the establishment of a joint venture to redefine the travel experience for the hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers traveling abroad and domestically every year. The joint venture will leverage Marriott International’s global portfolio of brands and unparalleled hospitality expertise to revolutionize the travel experience as well as Alibaba’s digital retail leadership and its role as a gateway for international brands to reach over 500 million mobile monthly active users across its platforms. Drawing on resources from both Marriott and Alibaba, the joint venture will manage Marriott’s storefront on Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel service platform. It will also market directly to Alibaba’s customer base, provide a link between Marriott’s loyalty programs and Alibaba’s loyalty program, and support Marriott hotels globally with content, programs and promotions customized for the Chinese traveler.

As incomes rise, China’s middle class is looking for higher quality products and travel experiences. This new venture is designed to satisfy consumers’ expectations for seamless, integrated, personalized, and convenient travel solutions that connect travelers directly to Marriott’s portfolio of international hotel brands. The travel industry is an important growth opportunity as China’s travelers are expected to take an estimated 700 million trips over the next five years. Marriott’s owners and franchisees globally will benefit from the joint venture by capturing a greater share of this growing Chinese travel market and lower distribution costs associated with the joint venture.

From left to right: l Stephen Ho, Chief Executive Officer, Greater China Marriott International; Peggy Fang Roe, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Asia Pacific, Marriott International; Craig S. Smith, President & Managing Director – Asia Pacific, Marriott International; Arne M. Sorenson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marriott International; Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba Group; Li ShaoHua, Alibaba Group, Vice President, Fliggy President; Jiang Fan, Alibaba Group, Head of Mobile Taobao; David Chai, Fliggy Vice President

“We are proud to join forces with Marriott International – combining our large-scale consumer base, leading-edge technology and consumer insights with their unparalleled hospitality expertise,” said Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “Together, we are elevating and redefining the travel experience for Chinese consumers to be more seamless and personalized as they embark on adventures to discover the world.”

“We have long admired Alibaba’s digital expertise and deep understanding of Chinese consumers’ needs and behaviors,” said Arne Sorenson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marriott International. “By forming this partnership, we are pairing our hospitality expertise with Alibaba’s digital travel platform, retail expertise and digital payment platform, Alipay, and driving membership to our loyalty programs. With the growing number of Chinese consumers exploring new destinations, this venture will introduce our hotels worldwide to this new and growing traveling class.”

The joint venture will elevate the travel experience for Chinese travelers in the following ways:

Making Global Travel Easy: The joint venture will provide newly-integrated functionality to make the entire travel experience truly frictionless from planning, booking, paying and managing a trip to all of the activities associated once at the destination like shopping, dining and sightseeing. The joint venture will deliver user-friendly technology solutions that will open up a world of travel options for Chinese consumers.

Personalized and VIP Experiences: The joint venture will leverage technology to curate customized experiences for Chinese consumers. Marriott will offer access to private concerts, family-focused experiences, and court-side seats at sporting and other events through its Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Moments and Marriott Rewards Moments programs. Eligible members from Alibaba’s loyalty program will benefit from personalized hospitality programs and Marriott’s award-winning SPG ambassador program.

Wallet-free Travel: Alipay will be accepted at Marriott hotels in select global markets with further expansion expected around the world.

Next-Gen Loyalty: Connecting Marriott’s award-winning loyalty platform – Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards and SPG with Alibaba’s large-scale consumer reach will establish a new benchmark for the next-generation loyalty program.

In addition, in celebration of Alibaba’s Members day on August 8, Alibaba members will be able to enroll in one of Marriott’s loyalty programs – Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards or SPG – and book exclusive Member Rates through one of Marriott’s digital channels, beginning immediately. Special offers will also be available only on August 8 for members on marriott.fliggy.com.

About Alibaba Group
Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, and that it will be a company that lasts at least 102 years.

About Marriott International
Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of more than 6,200 properties in 30 leading hotel brands spanning 125 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company also operates award-winning loyalty programs: Marriott Rewards®, which includes The Ritz-Carlton Rewards®, and Starwood Preferred Guest®. For more information, please visit our website at www.marriott.com, and for the latest company news, visit www.marriottnewscenter.com. In addition, connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on Twitter and Instagram.

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The German carmaker Volkswagen’s luxury car unit Audi plunged knee deep into the Chinese market by setting collaboration with the three tech titans Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent to offer an array of digital services in the world’s largest car market.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed as the lux-brand and FAW-Volkswagen, VW’s joint venture with FAW Car Co Ltd signed the letters of intent with the internet technology groups at an annual summit in Shanghai.

Volkswagen has long been hobbled by scandals over emission tests, distracting it in a race of global carmakers to develop computer-aided services for drivers. The car maker asserts that it would have to remain in control of the relationship with the car user which is why it stopped interacting with the US-based ride-hailing service Uber, and technology giants Google and Apple.

As per the agreement, Baidu-Audi combination aims to provide the use of smartphone apps in its cars, Tencent-Audi includes helping drivers to make good use of WeChat communication app and Alibaba’s contribution would mainly be providing the drivers with more real-time traffic news services and 3D maps to the drivers.

This whole setup will enable the traditional carmaker to avoid being left behind in the race of ‘connected cars’ as in a recent move German rival BMW teamed up with Israeli sensor maker Mobileye to produce autonomous cars over the next ten years. Audi dominates sales in Chinese market leaving behind BMW and Mercedes which nearly accounts to one-third of the total sales.

Martin Kühl, spokesman for Audi in China believes that the carmaker has been successful in developing technology in China which is now being used elsewhere. The Touchscreen technology that got developed in Beijing is now being used by engineers in Germany. In his recent quote, he adds, “The Chinese are early adopters. If you’re not here with the latest stuff, then you can’t win.” (Financial Times).

In 2013, an R&D centre went functional in Beijing to develop technology that would first prioritise and monetize Chinese market and then export globally. Maintaining the lead in the market requires it to invest into internet- connected technology.

Source: Financial Times

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China’s top ride-hailing service, Didi Kuaidi plans to raise at least $1 billion in its latest fundraising round. This investment would value the company at more than $20 billion.

Currently, the terms of the deal are being finalised as the company is still in discussions with investors. The raised amount will assist Didi Kuaidi in contending against its biggest rival – Uber. Both the brands are in cut-throat competition in the Chinese travel market. They are backed by local partners and prominent investors. They are not only expanding aggressively but handing out attractive subsidies to attract drivers and riders.

Few months back, Didi Kuaidi – backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd – stated that it had completed another $3 billion round in the month of September. In order to increase its customer base, the Chinese company had also announced a strategic partnership with China Merchants Bank. This association has enabled the bank to become the first bricks-and-mortar bank that can offer in-app credit card payments to Didi Kauidi users. Focusing on the international markets, the Chinese company has been investing into the Uber rivals in the international markets.

On the other hand, Uber has been accelerating its race to expand globally and branch into newer services. The company has tested food and package delivery in few cities and is working on new technologies such as self-driving cars.

The innumerable fundraising efforts clearly indicate that Chinese technology startups that are leading in the market, such as Didi Kuaidi, are continuing to obtain positive responses from investors. If Didi Kuaidi successfully raises the amount, the company might easily offer innovative forms of services and expand into newer markets at the domestic and international level.

Source: Times of India and MarketWatch

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The internet is buzzing with the news of Ctrip investing USD 180 Million in the Indian OTA MakeMyTrip. Ctrip will take an initial position through convertible bonds and MMT also gave them permission to acquire the common stakes in open market. The news of investment has pushed the stock prices of MakeMyTrip northwards with a growth of over 20 percent on Thursday. Ctrip will eventually build a stake of up to 26.6 of MMT’s shares giving them right to name a director.

The entire travel industry has got eyes set on China and India as both the markets hold huge potential for growth. MakeMyTrip clearly stands to gain more as the investment comes soon after they announced that they plan to bear losses for another two years in a bid to acquire more customers. They plan to push the hotel and packages business for it to account for around 70% of their total revenues over the next two years. This was important for the company as the number of internet users in India is growing fast (17% in first half of 2015) and every ecommerce company is aggressively trying to attract the new customers. The capital from Ctrip would help them have an upper hand in the competition.

India is an interesting proposition for Ctrip and many other Chinese brands for the same reasons mentioned above. The smartphone sales and number of internet users are going up fast and nobody wants to give the huge opportunities a pass. Another reason for the interest of Chinese giants in India is because of the fast growing economy. In contrast, pessimism is clouding the Chinese economy which is clearly indicated by the stock market.

Commenting on this new association, James Liang, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ctrip, said, “Today’s announcement marks the beginning of the strategic relationship between Ctrip and MakeMyTrip. Through this transaction, Ctrip has now gained exposure to India’s fast growing online travel market.”

Ctrip was earlier working with Alibaba but the association came to an end recently. It could be because Alibaba’s own product Alitrip competes with Ctrip and also because Ctrip had partnership with Qunar which was partially owned by Baidu. Even though the combination of Ctrip, Qunar, Baidu and Priceline (invested USD 500 million in Ctrip recently) is a strong force in travel industry, there is hardly a prediction one can make. The industry is fragile and the size and scale of Alibaba can be a major problem for Ctrip.

Alibaba has been an investor in the mobile payment platform Paytm and recently increased its holding in the company. Backed by Alibaba, Paytm is also making moves in the Indian travel industry. It was also reported that the Chinese search giant Baidu is planning to invest in Indian startups. With these Chinese companies fast moving outside of their home country, we can certainly expect an interesting year for the Indian travel industry.

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Paytm, an Indian e-commerce website established in 2010, had launched its travel business starting with bus tickets in December last year. The company had tied up with several travel aggregators to cover almost all bus routes on its system. With almost 100% growth, it has already established its presence in the market space. To accelerate this growth exponentially, Abhishek Rajan – a senior executive of Myntra – will soon be heading the travel segment of Paytm. He will join the firm as the Vice-President this week.

(Read: Paytm to offer hotel bookings on its platform)

With the aim to make the travel segment the fastest $10 billion category for the brand, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and CEO of One97/Paytm, shared his thoughts about the new appointment of Abhishek Rajan at Paytm:

“We look at businesses that will help us to be profitable, and there is a lot of incumbency in the online travel segment in India. Abhishek, with his experience, is the right person to lead our efforts.”

This is not the first time Abhishek Rajan, an alumnus of IIM (Ahmedabad), has associated with One97 Communications – the parent company of Paytm. He played an important role in setting up the company’s digital payments and e-commerce business before quitting the brand to join Flipkart in 2012. He has more than 10 years of experience across verticals like e-commerce, digital payments, technology and business consulting, financial advisory and consumer internet.

Abhishek Rajan

The primary goal of Paytm will be to ramp up hiring for the travel category while simultaneously fighting for transparency and utilizing the mobile platform. Eventually, as the business grows, it will start signing up hotels and travel agents on the platform.

Elaborating on senior-level appointments, many new firms demand corporate affairs professionals from well-established businesses. As a result of this, many senior level appointments have taken place in the past few months. Housing.com had appointed Reliance’s Nikhil Rungta as its CMO and Ola had poached Flipkart’s head of corporate affairs Joy Bandekar. Initially, Flipkart, the largest e-commerce company, Snapdeal, India’s largest online marketplace and the online food ordering company Zomato had also included almost all their senior leadership from conglomerates like Unilever and Airtel.

With Abhishek Rajan joining the firm, Paytm aims to grow at a faster pace. His in-depth knowledge and experience of more than ten years in e-commerce coupled with strategic skills will be highly useful for the brand.

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Alitrip, the online travel marketplace, has a significant foothold in the Chinese market. It has focused on signing up travel agencies to reach more customers with its products and services. Distinguishing itself from other brands, it plans to drive a C2B marketplace and thereby transform it into a consumer-driven business.

Sherri Wu at WIT Singapore 2015

Sherri Wu, the Chief Strategy Officer of Alitrip, attended WIT 2015 to share her knowledge and experience of the travel industry and Alitrip. She pointed out that today most of the Chinese travellers are young, affluent, educated and independent by nature. They are ready to spend a sufficient amount of money at international destinations. Last year, Chinese tourists had spent a whopping sum of US$164 billion overseas. This clearly shows that money is not the limiting factor anymore for the modern Chinese traveller. As most of them are digital natives, they embrace technology and rely on mobile devices for their travel bookings. As a matter of fact, 70% of their travel bookings come from mobile devices alone.

Most of the businesses, especially startups, neglect storing data. Alitrip has realized its importance. It has accumulated a large amount of data over the last 16 years. With the help of this data, Alitrip wishes to create and design the best products and services according to the customer..

Social websites like Facebook, Twitter, G+ are being used extensively by many brands to reach to their customers. According to Sherri, the content on social media should be converted from user-generated content (UGC) to professional-generated content (PGC). This professional guide will be viewed as a more reliable and useful source for strategically bringing supply and demand together.

China’s Singles Day sale is believed to be biggest online shopping festival in the world. Alitrip celebrated this occasion for the first time in 2014. Giving exclusive offers to its customers, its total sales reached USD 9.3 billion in the 24-hour time period. The company had sold goods worth USD 1 billion in 17 minutes only, and touched the USD 2 billion mark in just above an hour. Its record-breaking achievement on a single day grabbed the attention of international audience.

Future of AliTrip:

Alitrip aims to further develop products and services that better meet the needs of customers. It plans to make travel a ‘natural extension’ for its customers. As described by Sherri Wu, the brand believes on ‘Innovation, Innovation and Innovation!’. Sherri quoted:

“Now the customer doesn’t even have to pay at check-in or checkout; Alitrip does it behind the scenes. It saves customers time and saves hotels front desk labor.”

Alitrip does a form of re-conciliation with the hotels through bank accounts. This is very convenient for the customers. Additionally, they have pushed out the online credit-based visa application for mainland Chinese residents to promote the enhanced offering.

Alitrip is an independent business unit of Alibaba – a giant Chinese e-commerce company and was created in October, 2014.

For more stories from TravelRave, click here.

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The Singapore Tourism Board on October 21 launched a comprehensive suite of digital and mobile services for the Chinese market. Chinese travellers form a large volume of inbound tourism for Singapore and thus it is a significant market for them. The new services will make it easier for the Chinese travellers to look up information about Singapore. To do so, STB has joined hands with four different partners, online travel services Alitrip and Tuniu, and social review websites Mafengwo and Dianping. These partners will curate and distribute compelling content about Singapore to promote Singapore as a destination among Chinese travellers.

(From left) Mr Edward Chew, STB; Mr Anson Ling, Baidu; Mr Donald Yu, Tuniu; Mr Lionel Yeo, STB; Mr Lu Gang, Mafengwo; Mr Tony Duan, Alitrip; Mr Leong Yue Kheong, STB; Mr Tang Hao, DianPing; Mr Quek Choon Yang, STB and Ms Low See Peng, STB

(Image credits: Singapore Tourism Board)

WeChat is very popular in China and a large number of brands use the service to engage with their audience. To cater to the Chinese travellers, STB has also launched a YourSingapore WeChat account. Baidu also offers services similar to WeChat with Baidu Connect. STB will use it along with WeChat so that the travellers can have real time location based services on their smartphones.

Mr Lionel Yeo, Chief Executive, Singapore Tourism Board said: “The digital and mobile revolution has drastically changed the way visitors research for and consume travel products, and underscores how we much stay ahead of the curve to adapt to the changing needs of our visitors. Only by doing so, we are able to ensure Singapore remains top of mind as a destination. Visitor centric experiences and marketing are both integral to our drive towards quality tourism; this expansion of digital services for China is a strong illustration of our commitment.”

The new partnerships and marketing activities won’t affect the existing channels. STB will continue to conduct its regular trade marketing workshops with the local industry to give digital platforms a boost.

With this new partnership with Alitrip, Singapore will have a dedicated Alitrip microsite. Leveraging Alibaba’s eco-system and big data, Alitrip will be able to curate the best offerings for the travellers thus allowing them to select products that best suit their preferences.

The MOU signing took place during the ITB Asia which is a part of TravelRave. You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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