Personalise your guests journey with AI

Today we are talking about how you as a host could utilize AI technologies to personalize suggestions for your guests and the benefit that this will bring. Now, there's a lot of talk in the industry about AI at the moment and I'm really excited today to really dive into this and really unpack what AI is in general. So we are on the Spotlight series and we shining the light on products and services that you as a host and hospitality owner need to know about. My name is Liam Carolan, I'm Mark Simpson's co host. And you're on the Boostly podcast, of course, which gives you the tools, the tactics, the trainings, but most importantly the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. Today we're joined by a very, very special guest who's an absolute expert in this subject of AI. So please welcome along Evan Dalgo. He's the, I think business development at Adaptive, which was formerly Jarvis ML, you may have known them as. This is a platform which is offering AI powered personalization engine to brands selling products, services and experience. So we're going to unpack what that actually means in just a second. But let's first of all welcome along Evan. Thank you for being here.

Thanks, Liam. Yeah. What you and Mark are building over at Boostly, between the engagement you have from the community and actual products, you're really just getting people excited about driving, direct bookings and best practices in E commerce. And I love it all. So I'm excited to be here.

Hey, it's an exciting time to be. I mean, I've only been in hospitality for four years, but this is so much more exciting than just general retail in general and just this stage in the world and hospitality, the mix of technology, the fact that people can take power back and get direct bookings is so important. So let's start off with very basic. Evan, first of all, if you can give yourself an introduction and an introduction to Adaptive as well, please.

Sure, yeah. So Evan Dalgo, the only Evan Dalgo on the planet. I'm the head of hospitality over at Adoptive, formerly Jarvis ML. And what we do is we provide machine learning personalization to vacation rentals. So long story short, what that means is we've all been trained to use personalization. When you go on Amazon and you like a product, or let's say you go on Amazon, you immediately see a bunch of products in front of you. You start clicking on products that Amazon is serving you, next thing you know you have 10 things in your cart that you didn't anticipate that's because Amazon knows us better than we know ourselves. And they do that with machine learning personalization where they show you things that you like based on your behaviors, your preferences and affinities. And then they keep serving you more things based on what you click on and they don't do what's wrong and they double down on what's right. So we do that for direct booking businesses. The idea is, is that why reinvent the wheel when we can just copy and paste what the OTAs are doing? They're dominating for a good reason. If you Google Expedia Group, their first line is we make over 600 billion AI predictions a year across 200 websites. So the idea is how do we democratize that technology for direct booking businesses?

It's exciting as well. And this the kind of thing you're talking about there, where you get suggestions on websites has been happening for a long time. And this is only just really in the infancy of that kind of marketing, isn't it? Which, which we're going to dive into. I remember reading a, an excerpt from one of the books, which I can't remember the name of the book, but it basically said the first person to know that a female may be pregnant, obviously other than the female may be somewhere like who sells the iron vitamins and stuff like that. Just from some of their searches it starts suggesting some of the other stuff like you know, sort of infant related, baby related sort of stuff. And how going back to even then, we're talking years ago now that it was starting to be suggested, but obviously that was based on not AI technology at the time. So let's dive into what really is AI and why should we care?

Yeah, so AI means a lot of things. I think companies about a decade ago started saying AI because it was cool and then real quick it wasn't cool and everyone just sort of just used it too much and there's just a mistrust because it wasn't real AI. You're just saying it when anything has to do with SaaS or tech. So the idea of actual artificial intelligence is how do you take a ton of data and utilize it for an output that can be repeated again and again? So how do we take data from all over the place from your direct booking website, your reviews, your PMS system, your marketing cloud, whatever you have, plug it into one place, which is the machine learning engine or the brain. And in that brain, how do you just start drawing connections, meaningful connections like purchasing power per guest, preferences and affinities per guest, Internet behaviors Marketing, things like that. And then from there you personalize an output or you streamline an operation, whether it's through automation or it's just even understanding your customer a layer deeper than giving them a call and asking them something, just going the level, the step ahead. So it's the idea of how do we take this data and make it useful. And I'm a firm believer that AI is not going to directly replace humans for the next 20 plus years. Maybe in some cases it will, but for the most part, humans will have their jobs the next 20 years. It's going to be the humans that use AI that are going to replace other humans that don't use AI.

I like that analogy. So we're not, we don't have to worry about like the Terminator machine or whatever in the next five years or anything like that, which is cool. So one of the questions I'd have for you is where in hospitality at the moment is there already utilization of AI?

Yeah. So I would say the easiest is personalization regarding content on the sites. OTAs have been doing it for probably 10 years at this point. It's gotten more sophisticated and more predictive and there is a sense of urgency here because we're losing cookies already lost that in Europe a long ago. But basically it's becoming much harder to follow your guests on the Internet. It's becoming much more of an anonymous environment. So everyone is just trying to collect this direct booking data because that's the best way that they can get the most data. And every time they come back to the site over the course of the week to make that booking, you're able to keep personalizing further and further. So OTAs have been doing that for at least a decade. I think that's the easiest output. I think everyone in their head thinks pricing. They think, oh, the airlines are personalizing pricing or the, the OTAs are personalizing pricing. It's a much harder problem to solve than people give it credit for. So I don't think that's happening as much as people think just yet. But it will, it definitely will, because Amazon does it. For example, on Amazon, I was looking at a specific product and I sent it to my girlfriend. She opened it on her computer. It was $6 more than the one that I had. There was like 12% difference because it knows that I'm going to go search for a deal and, and she's going to pay for convenience. So it's not quite everywhere yet, but that's where it's heading.

That is scary, isn't it? That's a scary thought. To think that there's different prices depending on not only where, but who the person is. Which is. Which is crazy. So how does it look like? So let's talk more that personalization from a particularly in hospitality point of view, what is that guest journey like? If a deal is personalized to them, what sort of things would they expect to see?

Yeah. So first, before you even consider personalization, you have to have a direct booking website and enough properties. So I want to emphasize that because the idea of personalization is you're reducing cognitive load, you're reducing the friction to get to the end goal, which is the property you want. And if you have like 10, 20, 30 properties, by the time you put in filter dates, a human's brain can sift through a handful of properties, no problem. But by the time you have 60, 70, 100 properties, that's a little bit overload. So the idea is how do we sort order the best properties at the front and, and as they scroll down, it'll become least likely they book. And the idea is that all the best properties are at the top. So really there is a threshold for this to work. Now, in order for it to work, the basic e commerce principles need to be established. The first thing they see is the search bar highest intent, the ones who know their date and where they're going and when and give them that first spot right under that. Not below the fold, but right above the fold. So they see it. Then you have recommendations and those are for the ones doing research are a little bit flexible and not so super high intent just yet, but that's where you're inviting them into your digital storefront. And now you have a chance to convert them. And the best way to convert is do what Amazon does and just start clicking. So the, that's how the flow should work. Now on that homepage, you have the hero image in the background, you have the featured properties that I just said. Those can be personalized to every guest. So a family of seven from Beverly Hills, California with a very high spending behavior will see something entirely different than, let's say a digital nomad. And the idea is, is that by showing them what they want to see, you're increasing enthusiasm, you're showing them optimal properties, you're increasing average booking value, and all in all, you're, you're increasing conversion. So I threw a lot out there, which, whatever is interesting, we can dive deeper in.

No, I love that, I love the fact that the personalization, depending on who the guest avatar is. And a lot of what you're talking about there. I know there's be people listening to this who go, oh, I haven't got 60 plus properties, I haven't got 75 plus properties who think, hey, this might not be for me, but at the end of the day they can still pick up so many tips from this. In terms of the way to lay out that web page is, you know, it's music to my ears because that's exactly what we do at Boostly, which is to get that search bar high up, get the high properties. Now the thing that we can't do is that personalization, you know, without some sort of AI technology like adaptive, which is, which is cool. So what would you say from. That's from the guest side of things. How does this look from a host side of things? What would a host see differently? Do they, do they see anything differently in terms of the data? Or is it a case of they just would just get more bookings? Is that the effect that the host will see?

Oh yeah, you see a lot more. And the idea is that this exposes transparency into every stage of your booking funnel. So early on VRMs are going to want to establish what does their booking funnel look like, what stages are there, where are the hurdles, where are we, where are we stagnating? And the idea is, is that with machine learning as well as our tracking, so what we do is we have something called adaptive tracking where we can get that 360 view of each web visitor on the website. Now once we have that view, we can monitor them over the course of several weeks. Every time they come back, what they look at. And the idea is every time they come back and look, their journey is going to be enhanced because the machine learning process what they did and it will improve. Now what is the machine learning engine exposing variety of things. It's exposing which guests are the are correct for each property. So for example, if you do have a few lagging properties, instead of just email blasting all 30,000 of your previous guests, how do you find several hundred that are optimal for this exact property? And you can do that for every single one. So you could see properties by guest. Another thing you can do is see purchasing power by guest. So previous bookings, of course you already have a lot of data. And if we can interconnect it with more things, whether it's the marketing cloud and Google Analytics and other things we can extract data from, we can then find the purchasing power or ballpark purchasing power so that Way we could do a little bit more advanced segmentation. And then the idea is when you start personalizing marketing to them and they come to the website, it's going to enrich the data you have even more. So the idea is the more engagement, the more data you have on that person, the better recommendations you can get. That's how you drive repeat direct business.

My mind's blown from that because that is just so important, it seems. I mean, there'll be a lot of hosts who are listening to this, who are property managers who are looking to grow their business. And just having that as an advantage, you can see how that could supercharge your business. Because the point I want to come back to is that you said that if you're a property manager with less properties, it is fairly easy to identify those guests who are high spenders, who are the people you prefer to host. And it's definitely something that Mark talks about in his book Direct Playbook, which is to identify the people you like to host, who spends the most money, who do you appeal to? And that side of stuff, what this AI technology is really doing is allowing you to do that at scale and very accurately. How far can this go then? So for a host who might have additional services. So I was speaking to one host who's got a place by the lake, they've got boats for hire, they've got bikes for hire, they've got all of this stuff. How far can this technology be pushed to leverage the opportunities?

Yes. So everything we've spoken about so far, personalizing the content on the website, that is very much crawling and maybe some things like personalized search, is walking with AI. So what does, I guess, jogging and running look like? Upselling, cross selling. So let's say they have packages from local activities in the area or local stores in the area. How do you upsell the right packages to each person? Real time pricing is something that is in the works and will be a reality in the next two years. That's something that's more running with AI. So that's where it's heading. And then really where I believe it's heading is I coined a term called predictive hospitality, and that's what we're using over at Adaptive. The idea of predictive hospitality is how do you predict what the guest wants before their stay, which is digitally in the direct booking process during their stay. Maybe you have concierge services, an iPad recommending certain things, the TV suggesting certain things. Certain. Maybe a playpen set up for the baby, things like that. That are just like Ritz Carlton expectations that you can get from AI just constantly ingesting these, all these data points. And finally after the stay that, you know, there's so much noise out there. And I have a email that I send to, to customers saying, you hate my emails. Now imagine how much your guests hate your emails. And the idea is that after the stay, the personalization needs to continue. They don't want your generic noise. It's too much noise out there. So that whole loop is what I call predictive hospitality. And that's where I believe AI is heading.

I mean, the opportunity there is just so big, isn't it? And I think the thing that I want to draw attention to there is it's not just the information that we're putting out as hosts, it's when we put out that information. So we all know guests who like a lot of communication need their hand help holding a little bit more than some who want more privacy, you know, and that side of things. So it's actually, when are those certain guests going to react the best to offers, stimuli, whatever it is, calls to action, all that side of things, which of course, across a big enough data set, things like adaptive would be able to figure out when is the best time to be targeting these, which is, which is cool. What would you say is the biggest threat then or the biggest challenge in terms of, in terms of AI in general? Is there any situation that would happen where people won't end up taking up this technology? I mean, I, I can't see it myself, but is there any threats at all to, I guess first of all the AI tech which is coming along, and then also for hosts who don't use it.

Yeah. So let's just compare with the OTAs, because in my opinion, let's just copy and paste what's working and the OTAs have figured it out. So when it comes to AI with OTAs, right now, they're all using it. If they have funding, they're using AI to do it. Because that's just, that's what needs to happen. That's what Amazon has proved. That's what all of social media has proved. Personalization gets people coming back again and again and increases lifetime value of your customers. And that's just a cold hard fact. Every single E commerce company uses personalization. There's no excuse for, for hospitality companies that have enough data not to be using it. So my biggest fear, which I think is already happening, is that people just don't want to use AI because they still are like pen and paper mentality. For example, we spoke with a property manager, several hundred properties and they have 70% occupancy and they have all the right ingredients. All they would have to do is sign us off. We would work with their web development company. We can have personalization up in a matter of two or three weeks. They're like, we don't want to use AI. Why I will, I will teach you as to how you should use it, but all the OTAs are using it. Have you asked yourself why they're using it? And my fear is that, not my fear what's going to happen is there's going to be roll ups that use AI because I'll tell you right now we're talking to several of them and they're centralizing all their operations in this mass data they have, they're going to have databases of a million guests that they can just keep coming back again and again for the lowest acquisition cost. So they're going to keep acquiring these, these non direct booking businesses that are hooked on the OTAs and consolidation is just going to speed up because they're not going to be able to compete.

Make a really good point that that is the point of difference. A USP as well, for those property managers who have access to AI technology will if you're a real estate or property owner and you've got a choice to go with, you know, management company A, who's very traditional or management company B who's actually using the latest technology, getting all this data, that would certainly sway things, you know, towards that, that second company for me. So what other insights you've been, we're talking just before this call that you've been advising a lot of people in the industry. Is there any other insights you'd like to share from just advising people on AI across, you know, hosts across the industry?

Absolutely. And as far as I know, I'm the only person in the industry that's been consulting vacation rental managers for the last one and a half years on specifically AI and machine learning solutions. I haven't met anyone who's specifically been doing that, but I have, I have learned a lot throughout this process and what I've learned is that AI is not an easy thing. You don't just press a button and get AI. So a lot of these vendors which are not selling real AI solutions are saying, currently use our AI chatbot, use our AI solution for this. And in reality they're just, they're just lying to you because that's messaging, that's Just false messaging. And they're saying AI because it's a buzzword and it's captivating again and again. AI is cool again. So what I want to leave your crowd with is how do you figure out what's real AI and what's not? And the best way to start is to go on their LinkedIn. If your company says they're using AI, let's go see who's building it. Go look at their employees on LinkedIn. Where are their engineers? I saw a company yesterday that has, that has 20 employees, AI branding all over the website, not one AI engineer. It takes an army of AI mad scientists to put these solutions together. This is a difficult, difficult mathematical modeling, quantum computing equation. Like, this is not something you snap your fingers and like, okay, just start running my business for me and do it. No, it takes time, it takes effort. So really challenge any vendor that says that they're selling AI. Go on their website especially, go look at their LinkedIn and try to make them explain how is it learning, how is it improving? What are you actually doing with my data? And ask sophisticated questions like that.

It makes sense. It definitely makes sense that that company you've just mentioned. I mean, I think of AI and I think of some of the awesome ideas and problems that AI is going to solve, but at the moment, everywhere you look, there's a new AI everywhere you look. And at the moment, as we record this, we are actually doing a training at Boostly. So as we record this, we're at the end of January 2023 for those listening on the podcast. But Mark Simpson is actually doing a five day training which he does these free trainings from time to time. If you come and check us out on the hospitality community on Facebook, you can join that and you'll get notified about any of these free trainings. And he's doing one with, you know, the, the popular one, ChatGPT at the moment, which is, is, is based around how you can utilize that as a, as a, as a host. But it's one of those things where everywhere you look at the moment, there's so many of these different AIs that it's difficult. And I certainly feel, even as somebody who's, I feel like I'm quite involved in the industry that even I feel a bit overwhelmed by going, oh my God, I've got to look at this. And then I've got to go and look at this and I've got to look at this. And there's only so much bandwidth for, for hosts to really do this sort of thing. But this is where you know for the right host, for somebody with 75 plus properties who wants to supercharge their business, this is where adaptive comes in. So I'll throw the floor open to yourself and if you wanted to let us know really who would be ideal for adaptive, the problem that's going to solve in their business and why.

Absolutely. So really adaptive is helpful for, for managers that have, let's call it 75 to 100 plus properties because that's about the point where it's a lot of properties to deal with like become cognitive overload for any guests looking for one. So I would say 75 to 100 properties and are committed to direct bookings. Already have a website and you have several thousand monthly visitors and this is a priority because if it's not a priority, I can't help you. It's not like something you just flip a switch and then you're good to go. So those are really important. One thing to note as well is that this does much more than just convert on your website. We just published our. Sorry, we're sneak previewing a case study right now with a 150 property luxury villa manager in the United States. And what we found is that we were able to trace the direct bookings from the second they landed on the website to when they came back several times to when they called the manager and completed the booking on the property they were recommended. So we found that we increased their phone bookings over 53%, direct bookings over 81%. The idea is that your website is responding much more interactively than a generic static website. So these websites are like living breathing creature creatures almost where like they're constantly evolving for the customer journey and bringing them closer and closer to you. That way they can close all the other tabs and just focus on you.

I love that. I mean like you say, it's a good point. It's not all about just on the website, it's about improving the, I guess the experience, the brand with that guest. So they pick up the phone, they you've earned that trust. Even more so because the journey is so tailored towards them, which is really cool.

Tim, if I could add it's one thing with AI too is it's supposed to optimize your efficiency. Like I said, humans using AI will put other humans, not using AI out of business. And the reason is because a team of two is going to be able to do the work about a team of 20. And there's a book called Scale by Jeffrey West. And he talks about that every time a company doubles in size, it has to at minimum get 20 to 25% more efficient. Otherwise it's getting fatter, not leaner. So AI is a huge opportunity to do that. You're going to see AI recommendations within your operating businesses, like Breezeway, within your business, insights within your marketing. The idea is, is that if you can just start letting the computer do its thing so you could focus on deploying rather than putting out fires, your team of two will be able to do the work of a team of 20. So that's a good message to leave because eventually your listeners are in a good place because they can eventually get to this point where, where they did everything correct and can just put in AI versus doing everything wrong for 40 years, or not wrong, but just growing for 40 years, becoming this freight container ship that takes miles to turn around. But now essentially this is a blank slate for a lot of your listeners to just prepare to integrate this advanced technology.

That resonates with me definitely. It resonates that what you're saying there about just staying lean as you grow, utilizing automation, AI technology in any way that you can, just speaks to me and drives. And still, I mean the worry is that at the moment more automation actually makes it less personal, but what we're actually saying is using adaptive, it makes it even more personal and more automated, which is just a win win. So as we reach towards the end of end of these, Evan, we, we like to do a couple of fun quick fire questions and then we'll share how everybody listening can get in touch with you. So yeah, let's just dive in with some fun ones. I was going to ask, should we be worried about a post apocalyptic Terminator situation? But I feel we've kind of covered that. I feel that. So instead I would ask what weapon would you use in a zombie apocalypse and why that is.

That is a wild question. And I will say I'm horrible at predicting the future. So odds are there will be a Terminator like event in our lifetime. With my track record at least. What would be my weapon? I think it'd be nice to fly, just be able to fly. Take some of my friends or whatever, my family, let's go to, let's go to one of these nice islands and start a life there.

Nice. I like it. What animal would you choose to be and why animal?

I like that they got to be an alpaca. You know, they're just very cuddly animals and they're content. So I Think I would like to experience being an alpaca.

Love that. Love that. And where would you say is the most interesting place in the world? Somewhere which, which you always think, you know what, that was interesting.

Yeah. My favorite place in the world is Israel. It's just so diverse. There's 150 nationalities and ethnicities represented there. So, so many stories walking the streets of Tel Aviv. I used to live there. Working back in an ambulance there. I went to college there. So that's one place I always have on my mind.

That's cool. That's cool. And then lastly, we always finish with this is. Is what would be your mantra, your, your saying that resonates with you?

Yes. I learned this from hospitality school, something similar. And then I coined the phrase if you make the stage grand, guests will assume their roles. And what that means is that whether it's your digital website or it's the actual property, when you let a guest come in and you invite them in and you set them up for success, they're going to succeed. And if you, if you go the level, if you go the step beyond, then they're going to follow. So the idea is if you have a beautiful website with personalization and it's just simple, it gets to the point you're going to, you're going to serve your guests what they want and then when they get to the property, then you have the chance to really give them that hospitable experience and you're really completing that full circle when you start to personalize everything. So I think that personalization is a great way to make the stage grand so the guests assume their roles.

I really like that. Yeah. And do you know what? After this I'm going to go back and listen to this again because there's so much to, to break down and you know, it's left me feeling inspired, excited and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people wondering how they can go. And check out more from adaptive and give yourself a follow. Evan, what's the best way to get in touch with.

Yeah, so I'll be speaking at a few upcoming conferences. I will be at the Skill Rentals of Book Direct show. So I think that's during the short stay week in the middle end of May. So definitely had there. That's going to be a super collaborative event of a lot of top vacation rental managers and short term rental managers. I went last year and it was just really incredible how Europeans put their heads together to solve problems. So that's going to be an awesome week with a bunch of industry professionals. But find me on LinkedIn. I'm the only Avendalgo on the planet. And yeah, you'll find me at Adaptive with an AI D A P T. I've asked me anything. I'm here to talk, I'm here to educate. And it's important for everyone to level up now because AI is moving fast and we got to move fast with it.

I really get the message from this is that, you know, don't underestimate AI technology and true AI technology, more to the point, which is cool. So thank you so much, Evan, for being part of this and spending your time with us. We've gone live on Facebook, so I'm sure there'd be a few people who have seen this on here and also obviously with broadcasting to our podcast listeners as well on YouTube. So thank you so much for everybody listening into this. We know there's a lot of places you can put your attention, and we thank you for spending it with Boostly. I hope you've enjoyed this Spotlight series episode. So, Evan, that's. That's everything. Anything I missed or any final thoughts just before we close things off?

Nope. That was great. And I look forward to more educational opportunities to keep pushing the bar.

Awesome. Thank you very much, buddy, and bye for now.