More and more hotels are coming to terms with the fact that increasing the value of their brand is directly proportional to achieving in-depth customer service with properly harnessed customer insight. This has necessitated the rise of hotels where customers are not only lured with interiors, but also with very real, AI robot concierge services.

Just a few days back, Amazon announced a new program designed to help hotels deploy Alexa’s voice-enabled smarts across their properties. The Alexa for Hospitality program will “help increase guest access to amenities” and “improve employee productivity,” according to a press release.This is more than simply putting an Echo on your bedside table to replicate the tasks performed by the Echo in your living room at home. The idea here is that guests will be able to ask Alexa for specific information, such as pool hours, as well as ordering room service or asking the concierge for dinner recommendations using just their voice.

Through Alexa for Hospitality, hotels can configure Alexa so that guests are able to control their various connected in-room gadgets, such as thermostats, TVs, and lights, as they would at home. According to Amazon, guests will soon be able to connect their own Amazon account to the Alexa-powered device in their room so they can access their music and audiobooks. This integration will be temporary, with the connection automatically cut once a guest checks out.

The first results of Amazon’s new hospitality program will kick off this summer at a number of Marriott International hotels, according to Amazon, though the company is opening invitations to all hospitality companies.

After decades of spending on technology to enhance staff abilities, hotels are finally looking up to the commercialization of advanced tech such as AI, so that hotel guests can enjoy value for money in terms of efficiency and luxury. This is not a replacement for humans, but is much wider and pervasive. Technology like Alexa can create more trust, and in the process also transform hotel processes, services and facilities.

Today, the hotel industry thrives on and rapidly adopts technological advancements that provide utmost customer satisfaction. Having an intelligent Alexa hotel is ‘the’ strategy that modern hotels need to surpass customer expectations. How? There are certain essential elements of Alexa that will make hotels intelligent, including digital assistance, voice-activated services and travel experience enhancers. From the customer’s personal choices to their tiniest of needs, this will help hotels offer carefully-planned assistance.

Travellers today love absolute control and flexibility in their travel experiences. A dedicated technology like Alexa that empowers customers’ stay, giving them the luxury to unlock their room, adjust room temperature, operate curtains, or even order food and drinks, is a sure win-win. Additionally, the Alexa Skill Set, a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation, and code samples that makes it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa, will also help hotels with customization to deliver a unique experience. This will provide a differentiated experience by building a skill that lets guests naturally access property information, services, and amenities. We have anyway managed to become comfortable with voice assistants on-the-go, as well as at home. Alexa will simply help hotels recreate the same experiences and comfort.

The more you know your customer, the more better positioned it makes you to surpass their expectations and cater to every need. While hotels have already started making the pre-journey process(bookings) seamless, it is time to take a step further and assign AI the work of a dedicated chaperon, who will also make the stay more familiar and comfortable. Amazon’s Alexa is the breakthrough all hotel systems have been waiting for.

The post Amazon’s Alexa is successfully wooing the hospitality industry appeared first on TravHQ.

Corporate travel has been taking its own sweet time to modernize. While consumer travel has evolved with a demanding customer base, business travel still seems to be stuck with legacy issues. More than 90% of the market is still being served offline via a complex maze of travel desks, travel management companies and corporate travel managers. Multiple email exchanges between the travel desk, the human resources team, and an employee makes travel cumbersome.

Here steps in Insteract Technologies, a cloud-based platform, which offers a transparent and convenient way to buy business travel for SMEs. The Bengaluru-based company, founded in July 2015 by three friends – Anandkumar Chandran, Kiran Balimane, and Balaji Ramakrishnan – offers personalised, relevant, and cost-effective travel options to the business traveller by comparing and sourcing lowest relevant options from the market, as per a traveller’s preferences and business rule.

The idea for the business came when the founders were working at Verchaska (Balaji Ramakrishnan’s first venture), which was building legacy software, on-premise solutions, for the global travel industry. They quit the company in 2015, and started Insteract. The three co-founders seeded the company with $250,000 and began to build a product that centralises a company’s travel data, and provides analytics, benchmarking, and guidance to influence employees to make better travel decisions that save money, and comply with their company’s travel policy. The product was launched in January 2016, and went live with 45 corporate customers. Since then, Insteract has acquired 400 clients.

Insteract aims to make travel planning smart and transparent for businesses. The company’s ‘intelligent travel agent’ Hellolosa provides the end user with a real-time cost range produced by data analytics that track fares through real-time benchmarking of market. All options are benchmarked with the lowest logical market fare so customers get a clear picture of what they are buying. Insteract shows the top seven logical options to choose from. It’s unique profiling algorithm evaluates each available option through numerous travel parameters that match with the behaviour of traveller with the company policy. Some of the options are exclusive to them and offer the best value.

Price cap and benchmarks are tagged to each trip request and can be viewed at any time by everyone involved in the workflow. The customer can configure workflows based on spend limits and job titles for teams of any size across the company across any locations.

At the core of Insteract lies the aim to improve the effectiveness of travel programmes. Insteract identifies insights into points of friction between a traveller and travel policy and gives recommendations to optimise travel cost. It provides an absolute and relative comparisons between the traveller behaviour and booking patterns so companies can assess where they stand in comparison to industry benchmarks.

Our take –

The party is just getting started in this space. Business travel has immense potential to become automated, more than leisure travel, because it is a more frequent activity. Corporates are finally starting to look for tools that will virtualise their travel desk function. Here, products like the one by Insteract, can deliver and improve on travel services, thanks to AI and machine learning. It will be pretty exciting to see how the company takes this forward by partnering with different elements of the travel industry, and make a dent in the legacy software business as well.

The post Looking to manage corporate travel expenses? This startup has the answer. appeared first on TravHQ.

For a long time, travel businesses were operating with the objective to move people from one point to another. Now however, they put a lot of effort in understanding their customer and are constantly exploring ways to get more insights on their customers to serve them better. In order to help Destination Marketing Organisations take a step forward in this direction, Amadeus has rolled out a product suite, Destination Insight. It aims to put DMOs in the know with analysis of up-to-date travel data, removing some of the guesswork involved when making key marketing decisions.

DMOs often look at the data about arrivals because they don’t really have a direct link to customers to gauge how their various initiatives and global events impacted the behaviour of travellers. The have to put together pieces of data from different sources with gap of months. The data is then used to draw outline for the next year. However, as the insights are delayed, this cycle doesn’t allow DMOs to quickly iterate based on the data. Instead, there is lot of guesswork involved in the key decisions where they should have better information to act upon.

The suite leverages the travel data to draw actionable insights for destinations. By analysing billions of global air travel transactions in near real time, the suite can reveal hidden opportunities for DMOs to boost their destinations’ growth. DMOs can for example run relevant analyses of traveller searches and bookings to measure, adjust and build more effective campaigns. They can also view bookings to their destination versus competitors to understand who they are most closely competing with and quickly develop strategies in response to market developments.

Steven Valcke, Business Intelligence, Marketing at Visit Flanders said: “It’s becoming increasingly necessary for DMOs to be flexible in their strategies. Thanks to Amadeus Destination Insight, the way we use data has changed significantly. We can monitor, on a weekly basis, the impact of factors such as currency changes on traveller demand in our target source markets and adjust campaigns in response. Having this kind of detailed data allows us to be more responsive to developments.”

Destination Insight is flexible and scalable, and can be used by both emerging and mature DMOs, whether they are monitoring travel at city, country or region levels. Destination Insight has two modules, Top View, and Navigator, which can be used together to maximise actionable insights and equip DMOs to compete for traveller attention in the right place at the right time.

Pascal Clement, Head of Travel Intelligence, Amadeus, added: “One of the most game-changing aspects of big data is that it enables organisations to look into the future and anticipate the needs of customers.  Destinations that can understand today’s travellers through data, and respond with targeted, effective campaigns will be well-placed to capitalise on changing traveller preferences”.

The tool very well highlights how the data brands generate can be a powerful growth tool if used right. Steven Valcke explains in detail how Visit Flanders is using the data in this blog post. More details about Destination Insight can be found here.

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No, don’t stop experimenting with new technologies after reading this. We want you to bring new things to the market to make things better for us and to keep the biggies on their toes. However, stop making your world revolve around how things are going on in the background and put a stronger focus on how the users are getting it done. It is certainly a big deal for you and many others like us, but the users don’t care. They will install your app because you are solving a pressing problem. ‘How’ isn’t something they can be bothered about (many people searching on metasearch websites don’t know where they booked, get the hint). During the recently concluded Startup Knockdown, experts from the industry highlighted that a large number of new players don’t put enough stress on perfecting the user experience.

We asked developers, designers, users and everyone else we could ask on social platforms and communities on what are things that most websites and apps get wrong. Here are some of the points that were highlighted.

Not being obvious

Will the buy button add it to my cart or take me to the checkout page? I want to add another hotel booking, will I have to come back? People don’t want to be left guessing about what effect their action will have. Make the content obvious for your users instead of leaving it at their guess. This case study from BlaBlaCar elaborates the point very well.

Lorem ipsum

If you are designing first and putting content second, stop immediately. Lorem ipsum shouldn’t be the content for you to start. Using generic text prevents you from tailoring the design perfectly to the content and the function it is going to serve. Start with the content and build your design around it and it will make a world of difference.

Pushing the route

You have drawn up a nice flowchart on the glass wall in your office. You have got the perfect idea of how the user can reach a certain feature. Are you sure the user would follow this path? Good navigation is important but nothing to be proud of. The flowchart is there because you couldn’t fit the useful things on home. Y belongs to the X category according to you but will everyone look at it the same way?

Forcing decisions

I can complete the booking only if I download the app? Most people would either start looking for other websites offering lower fares or would uninstall the app right after they have made the booking. Extorting downloads out of users won’t let you gain anything, except maybe their frustration. Mobile web isn’t dead. If anything, it is a huge opportunity in travel space as many experts highlight.

Expecting to read

Don’t expect your users to read, ever. The best they are going to do is skim through the text picking up some words and phrases as they progress. Unless it is a detailed post on your blog, cut down on text, divide it, highlight the key bits or use visual cues.

Clutter

Every new button could be a lost click. Even with not-so-obvious content, users are more likely to click on something if there are fewer options. Offering too many things in one app or website is nothing to be proud of, not until you are using some AI witchcraft to get things done without too many inputs from the user.

Deformed forms

While a form is just meant to get user information, a badly designed form can drive away customers at the check-out page. Imagine losing a customer who was willing to pay only because you added compulsory fields that weren’t required. Even if there are too many details required, it is better to categorise them like ‘Personal details’, ‘Address’, etc. and divide the form in parts rather than creating a form that requires scroll. You can check out badforms.com to discover some of the mistakes to avoid while designing a form.

What are the other common mistakes you think ruin the user experience? Do share with us.

The post Travel startups, you are probably stressing too much on tech appeared first on TravHQ.

Amadeus umbrellas yet another start-up named Crayon Data, Asia’s fastest growing big data companies under their travel technology start-up community, Amadeus Next. Amadeus Next, the community was created to mentor, nurture and partner with start-ups, and to evolve new and original ideas in travel, and support go-to-market efforts.

Amadeus is a leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel industry. Customer groups include travel providers (e.g. airlines, hotels, rail and ferry operators, etc.), travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and travel management companies).

Crayon, with its growing presence in various geographies, will benefit from Amadeus’ global reach allowing Crayon Data to expand its services to a global audience. The travel industry is changing rapidly, enormously and fundamentally.  Digital channels are the primary source of inspiration and planning, and remain a critical part of the entire journey. Personalisation now means profit.

Based in Singapore, Crayon Data is a big data start-up where its flagship product Maya is a personalization engine that facilitates choice delivery for the banking, hotel and digital media verticals.

Maya is built on Crayon Data’s proprietary platform, Simpler Choices, which empowers enterprises with the ability to deliver ultra-personalized choices to their consumers. It does this by creating a consumer taste fabric, using over 14 recommender systems and proprietary cognitive thinking TasteGraph algorithms to work on vast internal and external data sets.

Speaking on the partnership with Amadeus Next, Srikant Sastri, co-founder of Crayon Data, said, “Crayon Data is thrilled to be part of Amadeus Next. We look forward to working with Amadeus and benefiting from its vast knowledge base, eco-system and reach within the  travel and hospitality industry, to develop cutting edge solutions and take them to market. This will change the future landscape of travel.”

With Crayon’s Maya, hotels and OTAs now have an opportunity to build trail-blazing, mobile first, curated travel experiences that can deliver personalised itineraries, from choice-to-commerce. Maya personalises engagement right through a customer’s ‘decision-making journey’. Crayon’s unique proposition has resulted in multiple clients across international markets, in the past year alone.

Speaking on Crayon’s innovations, Bart Bellers, Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy at, Amadeus Asia Pacific, said, “What we like about Crayon Data is that they’re solving personalisation at the other end of the spectrum. Instead of trying to map a traveller’s personality, Crayon Data brings meaningful insights to travellers about the atmosphere of hotels and restaurants by building taste graphs of each and every property. Amadeus Next is very excited to have them on board and we look forward to supporting their growth with Amadeus’ technology, expertise and customer reach.”

Crayon, a portfolio company of Jungle Ventures, has been accredited as one of the most successful and innovative big data start-ups in 2014 and 2015, by global platforms such as TiEcon, CEBIT, IBM Watson, Intech50 and OrangeFab. Other travel technology start-ups on board Amadeus Next include Booking Boss, Klook, Orahi, Triposo, TopDocs, TripVerse, TakeMe Tour, Seatfrog, ConfirmTkt,TraveLibro, Tripoto StayAngel, dozo!, TripHobo and PredictHQ.

We recently got a chance to catch up with Simon Akeroyd, VP, Corporate Strategy and Business Development, Amadeus Asia Pacific during Phocuswright India to learn more about Amadeus Next. You can find the interview story here.

The post Crayon Data comes under Amadeus Next’s mentorship appeared first on TravHQ.

Wouldn’t life be just amazing if travel became so easy that it would take just a few clicks to book your dream holiday? If you could just get on a site and without even entering your preferences you are shown the best beaches across the globe fitting your budget, airlines that you usually prefer to use, your preferred seat location and hotels of your choice. This indeed is the magic of Big Data!

The ever growing chunks and chunks of user data generated every minute by travellers online is processed by analysis techniques also known as Big Data analytics and is used by businesses for competitive advantage. Not only this, for consumers it brings personalised service at very high speed. In fact, it is going to be the next big thing in the travel industry. Whether it is the airlines, hotels, travel agencies or simply travellers, all are going to reap the benefits of Big Data.

Airlines are betting big time on big data analytics. British Airways already uses a ‘Know Me’ feature to make an in-depth analysis of data for each and every customer to provide personalised results to them resulting in a better look-to-book ratio, boost in revenue and better customer satisfaction. GDSs like Amadeus use features like ‘Extreme Search’ and ‘Featured Results’ that help in improving customer experience. For example, they don’t need to mention a date for travel and they can ask random queries like ‘When are the cheapest flights to Brazil available?’ or ‘Can I go somewhere for 500$?’ and get very specific results.

The hospitality business is another sector that can use big data analytics to offer rooms and services that are the preferred choices of their loyal customers. By knowing their customer’s preferences hotels can send them personalised messages and deals. If you are a hotel and have data about what time of the year your customers tend to travel, how much they like to spend and what they like doing, you can suggest rooms, activities and ancillary services that will go a long way in exceeding their expectations.

For travel agencies, it is going to be a boon because by simply tracking their customer preferences of destinations you can create personalised packages for them, by studying the behaviour of travellers like, which destinations do travellers in the age group 18-35 prefer, make suggestions on the basis of the choices of your customers. Your prompt advice will make a huge impact on the customer decision making and will help in better conversions.

Big data will also help advertisers maximize their ROI through highly tailored marketing messages based on online user behaviour and their search history.

It all revolves around consumer experience but it is a win-win situation for both, business and the consumer. The more personalised, convenient and budget-friendly travel will become, the higher will be customer loyalty and higher will be the conversion rates for businesses.

Author: TravelCarma is an experienced Travel Technology brand with expertise in equipping Travel businesses worldwide with state-of-the-art, mobile enabled Online Reservation Systems, Back-Office and Mid-Office Systems, Corporate Booking Tools and Access to Global Inventory via XML API Integrations. TravelCarma caters to over 200 Travel and Hospitality companies worldwide, including OTAs, Tour Operators, DMCs, Hotels, Wholesalers, Rental Car Companies and Bus Operators. You can know more about them at www.travelcarma.com and reach them at sales@TravelCarma.com.

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