UAE based Hotel Data Cloud (HDC) has successfully secured AED 1.3 million in seed funding from both local and international investors, to support hotels in re-engaging with customers in post-COVID-19 recovery. Ensuring that potential travellers are informed and always up to date, HDC is a centralized global database for descriptive hotel content that disseminates hotels’ information and pictures across
all major travel websites, travel agent databases and points of sale. With the hotel industry reeling from the economic downturn of COVID-19, the funding will assist HDC in accelerating the introduction of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based recommendation engine, specifically designed to help hotels overcome a range of pain points, as well as reach a wider customer base, once people start travelling again.
The new AI and ML engine will enable hotels to showcase tailor-made offers, amenities and other important factors, according to each travellers’ specific requirements and personal preferences. By building and constantly updating customer profiles that are based on analytics, psychographics and other meta-data, customers are not inundated with irrelevant information. Instead, the engine filters all the information to arrive at an edited and curated selection of content that allows travellers to make informed decisions quickly. It is estimated that with this technology, the CTR (click-through rate) across on-line bookings will increase by over thirty five percent.
Gregor Amon, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HDC commented: “The travel and hospitality industry has taken a catastrophic hit and we need to work together to ensure a fast and effective recovery. We’re very proud of our investors, who believe in the vision of HDC and have stepped up to ensure that we can accelerate the introduction of AI and machine learning into our systems. We’re doing everything to ensure that hotels are equipped with the latest technology to get back on their feet, and are committed to doing our bit to support the travel and hospitality industry.”
HDC has a portfolio of over 11,400 hotels in 153 countries
