SiteMinder launches AI engine to optimise hotel pricing and distribution

It will address pricing and distribution layers as price optimisation is 'insufficient'

SiteMinder is launching an AI-powered Dynamic Commerce Engine designed to identify and execute revenue opportunities across hotel pricing and distribution.

The hotel commerce platform said the new technology will go beyond systems that simply provide pricing recommendations, using machine learning and AI to identify issues across the underlying distribution infrastructure and recommend actions.

These include broken connections to distribution channels and unmapped room types, which SiteMinder said can limit a hotel's ability to sell inventory and contribute to significant lost revenue.

The engine will score optimisation opportunities for individual properties using data from its platform and surface the changes it considers most valuable, but hoteliers will "remain in control", with users required to approve recommendations before they are executed.

Sankar Narayan, CEO and managing director of SiteMinder, said hotels had struggled to turn the growing availability of AI into action.

"Reports and AI assistants are no longer enough," he said. "Hotels need to know which opportunities actually matter, without having to ask their system, and to be able to convert those opportunities into revenue."

SiteMinder has said it will address both the pricing and distribution layers, arguing that optimising rates alone is insufficient if underlying connectivity prevents customers from seeing accurate availability, inventory or room information.

The company is using data from its platform, which it said is used by 56,000 individual properties and powers 2.6 million hotel rooms, 140 million reservations and 300 million room nights each year.

Its machine learning model will draw on almost four billion availability, rates and inventory signals to identify potential optimisation opportunities.

The launch comes as hotels face increasing pressure to ensure their online content and inventory remains accurate across a fragmented distribution landscape.

SiteMinder research involving more than 12,000 travellers across 14 countries found that 51.4% had abandoned an online hotel booking because of a poor experience.

More than a quarter (26.5%) said they had abandoned a booking because reviews, photos or other hotel information did not appear trustworthy.

Narayan said the industry's focus on pricing had to be matched by greater attention to the technology and distribution infrastructure underneath it.

"Pricing can't be the only focus; the same focus is needed for the distribution layer - the foundations - underneath, which has a direct impact on the guest experience," he said.

The Dynamic Commerce Engine is due to go live over the coming months.