Technology is revolutionising a lot of different industries, making it easier than ever for businesses to reach their target market and give consumers a better experience.

One Killarney-based tech company, Arvoia, is looking to change the hospitality industry. Arvoia was founded in 2014 and aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) to give hoteliers the best chance of increasing customers as well as engagement and revenue.

Rather than just listing room rates by price, the AI-powered platform develops an understanding of each guest's demands in real-time. It then uses this to adjust the hotel's booking engine and website appropriately to prioritise the most relevant rooms, hotel amenities, and content for each potential guest.

This booking engine is already driving greater direct bookings at hotels such as in the UK and Ireland. In one example, the Dalata Hotel Group in Ireland has experienced a steady increase in its average booking value per guest as well as the conversion rate for potential guests over the first three months of deployment.
 

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence, in its most basic form, is a field that combines computer science with large datasets to solve problems. While the term may conjure up images of sentient robots from science fiction, the reality is that AI is increasingly being used in our lives.

AI is also used to describe a number of sub-fields, such as machine learning and deep learning. Artificial Intelligence algorithms are used in these areas to develop expert systems that make predictions based on input data.

In this sense, AI can be incredibly useful for businesses, as predicting the behaviour of potential customers is invaluable. This is what companies such as Arvoia aim to do, giving hotels more information about potential guests and working out what their needs are. This then provides a personalised booking experience. The company is expanding across Europe and also aims to offer its AI platform to US hotels in 2022.

What's next for Arvoia?

Arvoia collects more than two billion data points across a range of different industries. This includes the hospitality sector as well as travel and mobility. The end result is an AI tool that can be applied to a lot of different businesses. For now, the focus is on hospitality, especially after it recently appointed John Burns to its board of advisors.

As a veteran of the hospitality business, John has worked for multinational hotel brands such as Hyatt and Ramada. In addition, he has plenty of experience working for technology companies such as THISCO (now Pegasus Solutions) and INTRICO over 40 years of his career. He was recognised as one of the 10 hospitality gurus influencing the travel industry by Lodging Magazine and is a member of the HFTP's International Hospitality Technology Hall of Fame.

The platform is unique from other hotel booking platforms such as booking.com in that it gives hotels independent access to the tools. This means that hotels themselves can make the most of the AI, rather than losing out on revenue to a third-party service.

The AI platform, according to Mike Webster, CEO of Arvoia, is "the world's most advanced AI solution for hoteliers," citing the service's spread throughout European properties. "It has resulted in increased direct customers, revenue, and guest happiness without requiring the hotel to invest in new technology," he explained.

While the hotel industry is the main focus of Arvoia right now, the Killarney-based company could yet move to other sectors too. Restaurants, travel agencies, and airlines could all benefit from AI-powered tools. As the demand for this technology increases, the future looks bright for Arvoia.