Trivago acquires ‘machine learning’ start-up tripl

Intention to enhance hotel search platform’s product with personalisation technology Continue reading →

Trivago is expanding travel recommendations based on Artificial Intelligence by taking over ‘machine learning’ travel start-up tripl.

The acquisition is designed to enhance the hotel search platform’s product with personalisation technology which uses both big data and a customer-centric approach.

Founded in 2015, tripl has developed an algorithm to give tailored travel recommendations by identifying trends in users’ social media activities and comparing those with app data of like-minded users.

The AI-driven offering claims to imitate the way a travel agent would recommend hotel experiences relevant to the customer, and combines it with the ease of online services.

Following the acquisition, the former chief technology officer and creator of the tripl algorithm, Hendrik Kleinwächter, will join trivago’s development team to continue breaking new ground in personalisation.

He said: “When visiting a restaurant, I prefer those with few hand-picked entries on the menu, that exactly match my taste.

“That is what I believe a modern travel website should look like. There are billions of combinations, but the user is really only interested in the most relevant ones – we offer them through our algorithm.”

Trivago founder and CEO Rolf Schrömgens added: “We believe our competitive advantage is the speed of our learning. We have always focused on machine-learning and the area of semantic analysis.

“Tripl’s personalisation technology is unique and individual in its approach, putting us one step closer toward bringing each traveller into their ideal hotel.”