Feature in development - Beta release aim for July 2025. A feature flag will need to be enabled to ensure the New Hotel Search Experience is available in Planner.
Overview
The new hotel search experience is a strategic enhancement designed to provide a fast and intuitive online selling experience for hotels. This feature enables customers to promote their preferred hotel portfolios effectively through a robust API and faster hotel searches.
Key Benefits
Consistent Recommendations: Unified recommendation logic across all search interfaces
Enhanced Performance: Streamlined search processes with faster response times
Effective Distribution: Better promotion of preferred hotel properties
Reduced Operational Overhead: Single upload applies across all channels
Main Components
1. New Hotel Search UI
The updated interface includes three main elements:
Three-Tile Shortlist for Quick Selection
Displays instant visual selection of top three curated hotel offer with the key offer attributes (Room type, meal allowance, cancellation policies and price)
Features smart pre-filtering for quick decision-making.
Offers can be added directly to the itinerary with one click.
The hotel details page can be easily opened to check more information about the property and find more suitable deals.
Quick Search Hotel Drawer
If the user is not happy with the three options offered on the tiles view, a new set of hotels would be available when clicking on “See more hotels”.
The hotel drawer will start displaying a new set of recommended hotels selected following the new recommendation logic.
Key highlights:
Pre-selects 20 hotels for faster browsing
Order hotels from the highest to the lowest TrustYou ratings, one of the key drivers of the hotel industry.
Follows new recommendation logic for better relevance
A natural language search field (configurable)
Natural Language Search Field
A single field to perform different type of searches with the help of natural language:
4-5 star hotels with high ratings
family hotels, 4 stars, with a pool
The goal of the feature is to not bother users with tons of sort/filter options, but have a simple single field. Additionally, the auto-complete of the input field is also AI-powered and helps to complete a query. The suggestions dynamically adjust while the user is typing.
The feature is currently in beta and can be enabled per distribution channel at Settings -> Distribution Channel -> Planner -> "Natural Language Hotel Search".
Filtering Behavior
There are certain user queries (or partial queries) that are mapped to persisted facts and therefore, hotel properties are filtered (instead of a semantical search). Categories of user queries mapped to facts are:
Hotel Stars (e.g., "at least 4 stars", "3-4 stars")
User ratings (e.g., "4.5 rating or higher")
Hotel Facts (derived from Giata hotel facts)
The AI will be flexible enough to interprete user statements. E.g., "family-friendly", "for kids", and similar would all set the filter for "family-friendly".User segments: family-friendly, pets are welcome, wheelchair accessible, adults-only
Location: beachfront
Amenities: has parking, has wifi, has pool(s), has outdoor pool(s), has indoor pool(s), has restaurant(s), has bar(s), has a spa, has a gym
Relevance Search Behavior
If a user query cannot be fully mapped to persisted facts, the remaining part of the query will be used to perform a semantic search. Whenever this occurs, the results will automatically be sorted by relevance. Examples:
Geographical statements like "near the train station", "in 15min walking distance"
Hotel names "holiday inn"
Anything else that wasn't mapped to hotel facts.
Semantical searches leverage the full hotel description. It is not a filtering, it is only a relevance search with best matches returned first.
Sorting Behavior
When there is no user query or the full user query can be mapped to persisted facts, the sorting will be by TrustYou score descending.
When the query is partially or fully interpreted with a semantic hotel search, the results are sorted by relevance (i.e., best match first).
Remarks
Recommended hotels (global recommendations and template-level) are always listed first in the list and are never filtered out by the user prompt.
Queries always apply on hotel property and not room level.
Extensions in Planning
Here are some feature extensions we are currently considering:
We are reviewing the support for queries related to cancellation policies (e.g., "only refundable hotels") and meal plans (e.g., "all inclusive").
Bring the natural language search to the "all hotels search".
Refinement of the AI-powered auto-completion which currently may suggest prompts that are not fully supported by the search itself.
Limitations
Inventory hotels are not affected by the natural language queries at this point and thus, are always returned. This might change in the future.
2. Global Recommended Hotels Feature
This template-agnostic feature allows users to upload their own recommended hotel lists that apply across all searches.
Where to find it: Settings -> Supply - > Recommended Accommodations
How It Works:
Upload a CSV file containing your preferred hotels
System checks this list during searches in relevant locations
Recommendations apply regardless of itinerary creation mode
File Requirements:
UTF8 encoded CSV format
Must include "ID" column header
Each hotel on separate line
Use Nezasa IDs for hotel identification
Check out here the complete knowledge base article about this feature
3. New Recommendation Logic
The system follows a new three-step hierarchy for hotel recommendations:
Template Recommendations: Hotels defined at the template level (highest priority)
Global Recommended Hotels: Hotels from the uploaded CSV file
Trust Rating Based: Hotels with higher TrustYou ratings (fallback option)
4. Performance Configurations
New settings allow fine-tuning of search performance. Those improvements apply both to the new hotel search UI and the current Planner interface.
Where to find those new settings:
These settings are available in Distribution Channel Settings → Planner → Product-Specific Configurations → Accommodations
Search Pool Size
Sets maximum number of hotels for the initial availability check
Range: 1-1,000 hotels
The existing Distribution Channel will keep the default value of 1000 hotels. Nevertheless, for new Distribution Channels, the configuration will be set to 250 properties. We recommend to reduce the pool size to minimise loading problems in Areas with huge hotel density, such as Paris or New York.
Search Priority
We have introduced a new selection on how to build up the initial search. Previously, we were following the logic or Closest first based on GeoDistance from the search location. Now, we have introduced a new criteria ("Highest Rated First") to ensure hotels which best guest review from that specific Area are picked to build up the first request.
Creates a high-quality list for better results
Optimises search operations
Offer Streaming
We have enhanced the way offers are processed to ensure faster loading times, both in the new UIs and on the existing hotel listing page.
5.Planner API improvements
All the mentioned improvements on the Performance section are available in our public Planner API to ensure that API Consumers can benefit from these massive improvement
The Planner API documentation has been updated accordingly.