Room Mapping – A Modern Tech

The turn of the millennium brought with it several technologies that completely transformed the global business environment. Technologies such as the internet and social media provided a lot of advantages to many businesses that were aware of the potential of these new media. As a result, the companies that were able to incorporate these newer technologies like Hotel and Room Mapping into their existing mixes enjoyed a certain competitive edge over the companies that relied heavily on traditional technologies. The travel and hospitality sector is no stranger to such changes having constantly transformed itself through the ages depending on the needs and requirements of society.

The advent of the internet and social media platforms enabled travel and hospitality providers with a much-needed platform to showcase their listings. The 2000s saw the rise of several online travel agencies that aggressively expanded their markets in new and emerging markets due to the rapid boom of the travel industry. There were several reasons behind the shift in the industry:

• Shorter travel time between locations
• Better communication between long distances
• Easier access to information
• New and emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa
• New opportunities through strategic business ventures
• Rise of the niche industries
• A shift in the mentality and psyche of people

People are much more open towards online booking platforms today when compared to the general population before the internet revolution. This is because the internet provides people with a direct channel to market their products and services thus leading to better relationships between the provider and the consumer. Therefore, niche industries found their footing leading to a lot of more people travelling regularly for their business needs. The hospitality providers needed to understand the shift in the market and orient their ways to better meet the needs and want of their target market.

Several technology companies started operations to meet these growing needs of the business when it came to optimizing their business practices. If businesses were to evolve into the digital era, they needed to do away with their archaic technologies and incorporate these newer ones to reach more audiences and provide better services. The shift towards an online business model by travel agencies was a step in the right direction but since the market was new, these companies struggled to find the most optimal ways to sell their products.

What is Room Mapping?

Room mapping has emerged in the 21st century as one of the leading services in the field that has more or less become a staple over the years. Mapping in the industry ensures accurate and precise data flow between various nodes thus removing duplicate and erroneous listings on any given platform. With modern cloud-based systems being able to handle thousands of transactions simultaneously, the need for proper, updated and unique listings on one’s platform is greater than ever. When a supplier or an OTA works with multiple suppliers or provides data to multiple other sources, mapping that same data and updating it across all channels can become an extremely tedious process. Hotel and room mapping APIs automate the entire process so that inconsistencies within the system can be removed with a simple click.

Online Travel Agencies face the issue of duplication when it comes to rooms listed on their website. Every data provider provides each room of a hotel differently but in reality, the same room is listed multiple times with different attributes. Room duplication is a tedious problem since every supplier has different standards when it comes to offering room data. Room Mapping aims to improve the customer experience while finding the right room and optimizes profitability for the business. Room mapping is a process of identifying room level data via multiple parameters, detecting which room listings are the same and discarding duplicate results. It is carried out to display rooms accurately meanwhile sorting them by various filters according to the user’s preference. It is crucial to uniquely identify categories across multiple providers along with Room type, Description, Room ID, Amenities, Bed type, Policy, and much more for a better customer experience.  

Why Room Mapping?

One of the biggest challenges faced by the travel fraternity is the lack of any global standard when it comes to distributing content. Each channel focuses on its own set of rules when distributing content and this makes it extremely hard for suppliers to consolidate the data that is being sent out. It has been established through years of research and simulation that cross table mapping is a multi-step process, i.e., the travel businesses usually send their data to a data management company which then converts that content into their own set of codes which are then represented in a huge XLS table. This process alone, if not automated, can take up to a month depending on the type of data that is being consolidated. This mapped data that is consolidated is then sent to the various travel businesses for sale on their marketplace. As the number of listings and overall conversions on platforms increases, manually mapping and updating this data is next to impossible. An automated AI dependent algorithm that instantly maps the data that is being consolidated across various supplier points will readily fasten up the process of mapping. Therefore, room mapping is quickly turning out to be one of the most essential and critical technologies in the travel industry, the absence of which can vehemently hamper the overall potential of any given business.

If you want to read more about the history of room mapping and the attributes that you need to focus on, you can read our blog here that discusses in detail the role of accuracy and coverage in room mapping and the ways it can make or break modern travel businesses. You can also click here to learn more about us at Vervotech and the ways our AI-based room mapping API, Vervotech Mappings, are helping leading travel businesses worldwide consolidate their content.