The advantages of automated hotel mapping

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Mapping hotel inventory in this industry’s multi-supplier environment is not an option, it’s a must. In the hotel distribution space everybody maps, whether travel agency or hotel supplier. While everyone does it and its importance is undeniable, the conversation about it is limited and fails to address the full scope of its business impacts.

These impacts have become more apparent with tech companies like Gimmonix introducing fully automated mapping to the market, with its Mapping.Works solution. Challenging manual methods of the past, such as the use of cross mapping tables from third party providers, automated mapping is becoming an opponent to the former industry standard.

Mapping with third party hotel code matching

Cross table mapping is a multi-step process: the travel business sends its property data to a data conversion company which then converts it into its own set of codes, moving toward standardizing, and then formats them into a massive xls table. This lengthy, remote process can take up to a month. Next, the mapping company sends this mapped file to the travel business. Then, especially when working with more than one supplier, the internal staff has to manually map the cross mapped IDs to each supplier’s inventory.

Manually inputting the received data into their own database often takes up to a dozen employees several weeks, delaying time to market, leaving room for costly human error, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. With companies like Expedia adding thousands of properties to inventories weekly, speed and time to market is key, especially when it comes to being the first to make the hottest properties available.

While mapping providers using cross mapping tables claim nearly 100% accuracy, travel businesses have no way to validate this. And, these companies fail to mention their coverage ratio. Currently, the industry average covers around 60-65% of a supplier’s inventory, meaning more than 35% is not mapped, without anyone even knowing about it. Travel companies also don’t receive insights into why some properties aren’t mapped, leaving no room for improvements. This lack of visibility and low coverage significantly reduces the inventory available for sale. Using cross mapping tables has four disadvantages:

–        Low inventory coverage of 60-65%
–        Lack of transparency
–        Dependency on 3^rd party providers
–        Lengthy processing time impacting time to market

Automation: coverage, transparency, and speed to transform business

Automated mapping available through Mapping.Works by Gimmonix functions entirely differently. Powered by AI, it provides travel businesses a solution that automatically maps their inventory using API connectivity, without the need for employee involvement at any stage. By simply uploading their data at any time, they receive a table of fully mapped properties within hours, eliminating the need for manual mapping and significantly reducing time to market. This means distributors and suppliers no longer have to wait months for properties to be mapped before selling new inventory from recently signed contracts.

Another critically important feature is that it maps at 98.7% inventory coverage, while maintaining 99.999% accuracy. Companies can immediately expand their offerings simply by making their entire inventory available for the first time. Additionally, if a property isn’t mapped, automated mapping identifies why, enabling companies to fix problems immediately.

So why isn’t everyone mapping automatically? Some common stumbling blocks include the price difference and lack of fully understanding the value of automation. The costs of automated mapping are immediately made up for by significantly reduced labor spend and the elimination of human error. Also, the increased inventory coverage, insights, and speed, instantly provide travel companies with more business opportunity, proven to increase revenue. If travel businesses want to optimize — meaning cut spend, create new business opportunities, and increase revenue — fully automated mapping must be part of the equation.