Harnessing over 20 years of market experience, the AI experts at allora.ai have created a brilliant brain to allow hospitality businesses to work smarter by perfecting “the science of direct guest acquisition.” It goes beyond a passive plug into a hotel’s website to provide intelligence that allows hotels to engage each visitor to its website in the most compelling ways. The resulting technology takes the guesswork out of the guest work needed for a hotel to provide the most engaging experience to its customers and is already in use by more than 500 hotels in the sophisticated luxury UK and Ireland markets and beyond.

“A guest’s online booking journey is as complex and unique as they are, yet while hotels excel in the personal touch for people during their stay, nurturing connections prior to check-in on property is often overlooked,” said Michael De Jongh, President of allora.ai.  “With allora.ai white-glove service begins from the first moment a customer visits a website. It is designed to be a growth engine for hoteliers and is proven to increase the value of bookings while reducing cancellation risk. Whether delivering personalized messaging or product recommendations while browsing, offering tailored upgrade packages, or highlighting at risk booking cancellations, allora.ai continually predicts customer behavior to ensure guests arrive on site.”

Now optimized and available for the US market, allora.ai is a game changer that helps address the challenges of asymmetrical relationships with OTAs, staff shortages limiting inventory, and the changes in consumer behavior that has seen booking cancelation rates rise by 36% in the past four years.  Already proven in the UK and Ireland’s sophisticated luxury hotel market, where it is used by over 500 properties, it is being introduced with a guarantee to increase bookings by at least 25%.

The allora technology integrates into existing technology including Property Management Systems and Channels Management Software and provides access to a suite of tools that help hotel operators optimize booking, retention, and marketing effectiveness. Its data dashboard intuitively organizes masses of information that allows hoteliers to build better businesses:

• Booking optimization: With allora.ai the 5-star experience begins the moment a person visits a hotel’s website – every part of the browsing and booking experience is personalized to the individual. Machine Learning facilitates advanced split tests and merchandising features to tailor messages and product recommendations most likely to lead to guest conversion.
• Retention optimization: Leveraging 150 algorithms, allora.ai can identify cancellation risks of individual guests and suggest strategies and actions to bolster engagement and affirm their commitment. Alerts can be set to contact cancellation risks with personal messages and upgrade offers. Guests are continually nurtured to ensure check-in.
• Digital optimization: Helping businesses understand how to boost the cost-effectiveness of digital advertising, leveraging a range of tools and reporting capabilities. It facilitates the synchronization of price and ad content with Google Ads and allows ad spend to be prioritized around segments and time periods. It can track how net cost per acquisition (net CPA) evolves with key decisions and multiple variables over time and allows real-time, two-way connectivity to all major metasearch channels.
• Value optimization: ai provides a wealth of management data to understand individual and macro booking, arrival, and spend patterns to help hoteliers adapt to evolving trends. From e-commerce integration strategies facilitating vouchers, offers, and bundled packages to understanding key dates and times of booking and arrival, allora.ai provides unprecedented levels of guest information.

Some of the most prestigious hotel properties in the UK and Ireland currently benefit from allora.ai which includes marque properties such as Adare Manor, Harvey’s Point Hotel and Rudding Park Hotel as customers.

Initially launched in 2017, allora.ai is the world’s first AI-powered hotel booking platform that leverages the power of data science to tailor unique booking-to-check-in experiences for discerning guests.  It was created by Avvio, a company that has partnered with hotels across Europe and North America to drive direct website confirmed bookings. Headquartered in Ireland and with offices in the UK and the United States, the company’s technology is in use with more than 500 hotels worldwide and handles more than 400 million bookings and $500m transactions annually.

allora.ai is now available to independent hotels and mini hotel groups across the United States with support from expert teams located in Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami.

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The deal, which is the first of its kind, provides the charity with an artificial intelligence powered (AI) booking platform and guest journey expertise all complimentary. This will help support over 59,000 families of children suffering from cancer with temporary housing, transportation, meals and programmatic services.

The partnership deal will enable families, hospital staff, and care providers of this vital service, the ability to reserve and book rooms at the House when they need it at the touch of a button.

According to a recent report from Future Charity, 57% of charity employees feel that new technology not being embraced is one of the biggest hindrances to the sector’s development, but with this partnership, RMH-NY can connect with additional payment providers through their digital booking system to assist with diversifying the organization’s fundraising activities and expand their donation payment methods.

Commenting on the deal, Ruth Browne, President and CEO of Ronald McDonald House New York, said: “Ronald McDonald House New York is both excited and honored to be working with such esteemed organizations.

“We look forward to the advancements that these partnerships will bring to help better serve our families for years to come. As we strive to provide a seamless circle of support for the families we serve, partnerships like these are critical for us to accomplish our mission.”

The charity, which will also be Avvio Inc’s North American designated charity of choice, is located at East 73^rd Street in Manhattan. In close proximity to 16 partnering hospitals, the House features 95 guest rooms, which includes six post-transplant suites.

The partnership has been spearheaded by Avvio Inc.’s U.S. president and advisory board member of Ronald McDonald House New York, Rich Tuckwell-Skuda, who has also introduced guest acquisition platform SiteMinder as part of the deal.

Commenting on the deal, Rich said: “We’re very proud to be working with such an important and worthwhile organisation, which has for so long been part of New York City’s community and is personally very close to my heart. At a time when families are dealing with so much emotional stress, the last thing they need is to have to spend time arranging places to stay and working out how to book space, particularly when many people are travelling from all over the world. This is where we come in, our booking platform is a perfect fit for families to enable them to focus on the care of their loved ones.”

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One of the key learnings shows that mobile first, which has become a universally accepted assumption into the way consumers search and book hotel rooms, is not a universal truth.

This is markedly shown in U.S. guest behavior where 82% of website bookings for four-star hotels in London are made from a desktop device. There has been little change in the past two years and mobile device bookings are still not seeing growth.

However, the same cannot be said when looking at booking patterns of European guests with UK and Irish consumers following the recognized consumer trend for mobile first.

In June 2018 mobile device bookings overtook desktop bookings for Irish guests for the first time and the gap has widened since then with 52% of the domestic bookings for Irish hotels now booked on a mobile device vs. a declining 38% on desktop in the period up to August 2019.

Allora has also provided significant insight into the time it takes guests to book. Geography has again been identified as a major factor when it comes to the length of time from first web visit to the actual booking.

The number of days taken to make a booking at a UK hotel is 3.3 days for a UK-based guest and 2.5 days for a US guest. However, Allora has shown that Ireland-based guests take on average just over 7 days to make a booking in their home country and almost 6 days to make a UK booking. 

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Michael De Jongh is Chief Commercial Officer, Avvio

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According to a company spokesperson, Allora will be the first AI-powered direct booking platform for hotels and will use machine learning to constantly improve the booking experience and increase conversions. The platform will focus primarily on driving direct bookings and guest loyalty by orchestrating better online interactions between hotels and guests.

Allora reportedly relies on learning models to analyze large volumes of data, and identify which variations will yield the best booking engine configuration. The platform is designed to enable each hotel to build on insights from across our network, and drive precision with their own data.

According to the press release, Allora uses learned customer behavior “to create a unique conversation between the hotel and the guest by leveraging AI at the right moment, optimizing and personalizing their journey. It moves the booking journey away from the one-size-fits-all model of today by making it dynamic, relevant and tailored to each shopper’s needs and interests. This way, shoppers find what they’re looking for faster and will likely feel a stronger emotional connection with the hotel, increasing their incentive to book direct.”

The idea is to track and analyze data across hundreds of properties, based on geography, guest history, booking preferences, interactions on site, conversions and more. The platform will then curate relevant options based on demonstrated guest behavior and optimize the booking journey to guide shoppers to book direct with as high a booking value as possible.

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