All About Hotel Room Mapping: the Key to Booking Success

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Think about the last time you were looking for a hotel room while planning your vacation. So many hotels, so many rooms, and a million different options and possible combinations.

Now try to imagine what it looks like behind the scenes of all this information – a big mess, right? Well, for hotel suppliers managing a huge inventory of rooms can be challenging and frustrating, but with the right technology, the process can become smooth and seamless.

Behind that “Book Now” button is an overly complex network of numerous systems. One of those systems is Room Mapping, which is the process of gathering and grouping rooms from different sources. 

How important is Room Mapping really?

You’ve come to the right place to find the answer to this question. Below, you can find everything you need to know about Room Mapping, including the challenges, case studies of modern Room Mapping solutions, and how the latest tech affects Room Mapping.

There are a few tech companies out there offering “Room Mapping” and “Hotel Mapping” solutions, all based on the same idea of normalizing data and leaving the supplier with as little data to process as possible. Some examples of companies providing Room Mapping are as follows:

Travelgatex, Gimmonix, Giata, Vervotech, Cupid, Databindr and Mize.

Multiple suppliers and naming conventions

Why is Room Mapping necessary?

The same rooms will have different naming conventions and descriptions between different suppliers. As a supplier, this makes it very hard to manage this inventory as well as sell it to clients smoothly. The supplier’s main goal is to aggregate and bring together identical rooms, while standardizing the nomenclature. 

The basic elements of a room description are the Room Type, Bed Type, View Type and a long list of possible amenities and services (e.g. accessible, pet-friendly, balcony, mini-bar, etc.)

Each accommodation supplier may edit the existing information differently, discarding or adding, creating overlaps, duplications and more. Here are a couple of simple examples:

First room variations: 

1. Standard room king with sea view
2. Double standard king, sea view
3. Standard room with sea view kg
4. Dbl Std Sea king bed – 2 Per

Second room variations:

1. A Triple Deluxe Queen bed city view
2. Deluxe dbl qn for 3 adults with city view
3. TPL dlx 2 queen city view
4. Triple 2 dbl beds city view (de-lux)

Same room, different names

In each example above, the same room is described in four different ways. The result is what looks like an extensive supply of different room possibilities within a specific hotel. These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. When combining more parameters like amenities and services, the possible options will multiply again.

In reality, there will be a much smaller number of room options at any given hotel. The most accurate description of a hotel’s accommodation will normally be found on the hotel’s website.

The cluttered supply of rooms created by these multiple suppliers and their different descriptions can impact negatively profits, service quality, and experience provided by OTAs and bed banks. 

The main challenges are:

• Not selling the room because there is not enough information and there are better descriptions available from other suppliers.
• Displaying a room rate that is lower than it should be and losing money, due to inaccurate back-end room mapping.
• Showing incorrect information, for example, wrong bed types, views or accessibility. Promising something that is not included and losing money and reputation due to complaints and refunds.
• Increased maintenance and resource costs while trying to accurately map millions of rooms.
• More resources are required to deal with client complaints.
• Poor options to sort in and arrange room inventory.

ROI of Room Mapping 

When it comes to ROI and Room Mapping, understanding effective Room Mapping is key to seeing its potential ROI. Let’s start with an example. There are two different suppliers, and they provide listings for the same hotel. One lists a “Luxury Honeymoon Suite with Outdoor Jacuzzi and Seaside View.” The other supplier presents it as a “Honeymoon Suite, Jacuzzi, Seaside View, Lux.”

The descriptions are different, but they refer to the same room. The role of Room Mapping is to curb the risk of duplicate listings, which may need to be clarified for consumers when identical rooms are linked. This is where ROI comes into the picture. Imagine a customer is looking for a specific room, and the OTA’s (Online Travel Agency) booking platform returns several results for the same room with slight variations in the room description. 

With Room Mapping, your platform will link the same room through several suppliers and show it as one. While doing so, it will compare all the prices and automatically pick the most competitive. 

Through this process, you achieve several things. First, you enhance the user experience, avoid confusion, and increase customer satisfaction rates. Then, you ensure repeat business, potential referrals, and word-of-mouth marketing. More specifically, you communicate accuracy and trustworthiness by eliminating duplicate listings, missed listings, and outdated data. Finally, you optimize revenue streams by displaying all available rooms at competitive rates. 

Compliance and Standards

Room Mapping is an industry-standard for room descriptions. In Room Mapping, every room has attributes. These attributes include room type, class, view, square footage, bed type, etc. A couple of noteworthy examples of specific compliance and standards affect Room Mapping.

OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) leads the way in standardizing XML communications. This is a very valuable initiative in the world of travel software because it can enable communications between numerous systems. For instance, Room Mapping software is seamlessly compatible with the different software used by multiple suppliers. Standardized XML communications can also streamline additional integrations with property management, reservations, and booking platforms. 

Hotel Technology Next Generation, or HTNG, works on solutions to standardize integration and interoperability of technology solutions in the travel vertical, specifically the hospitality industry. To be clear, HTNG is focused on something other than Room Mapping solutions. However, some of the tech HTNG is focused on, such as guest services and property management systems, are relevant to Room Mapping. 

This extends to Global Distribution Systems or GDS platforms because they usually have a range of accommodation-related standards, such as room information, availability, and reservations. Room Mapping has to meet these standards to ensure all mapped data can be effectively distributed across a wide range of booking channels. 

ISO 21401:2018, or the standard for sustainability in the accommodation sector, doesn’t directly affect Room Mapping applications. However, it provides general and specific guidelines for incorporating sustainability practices in the accommodation industry. These considerations can affect the layout and design of rooms, thus affecting how Room Mapping is implemented in sustainable environments. 

Choosing a Room Mapping Service

When choosing a service based on software, you should remember one thing – not all services are created equal. Every Room Mapping service is unique. Here is what you need to know about a service provider before you seriously consider investing in their services:

• User Interface – the user interface has to be friendly. The intuitive user interface will streamline onboarding and secure support from all employees in relevant job roles;
• Precision – top solutions have high precision, recall, and coverage, which means that you will be able to get accurate results in a matter of seconds from numerous suppliers;
• Integration support – integration support is there to help you make the most of the Room Mapping service as it will support communication with the other systems, booking channels, and solutions already in place;
• Scalability – you need a scalable solution, one that will still be useful once you add new features and expand the number of rooms in your hotel. The solution needs to be flexible enough so you can still benefit from it once you start to grow;
• Security and privacy – some hotels see the information about their room configurations and descriptions as sensitive information that should only be used at end-use discretion. If you value data security and privacy standards, you should ally with a provider that does so too. 

What are the best solutions for successful room management?

For starters, a hotel mapping system checks and consolidates information on individual hotels, such as location, address, website, GDS code, etc.

Although Hotel Mapping is an integral part of the mapping process, it is relatively “small and simple” compared to Room Mapping. To ensure a successful room mapping process, covering a lot more parameters and variety is essential to get accurate results. The volume of data to process is much greater.

Having a range of accommodation suppliers is a good idea for an OTA. It maximizes the sales opportunity and gives customers a wide variety of hotels and rooms to choose from.

Therefore, to optimize conversion rates, OTAs need a Room Mapping service that applies effective filters to display search results in a standardized and logical manner.

Room Mapping software deals with the issue of duplication and the management of room-related content such as:

• Room types
• Bed arrangements
• Views
• Amenities

Room Mapping can be viewed from two perspectives. Firstly, the simpler one is the end-buyer’s view. The customer wants to purchase a stay in a given room and Room Mapping helps the seller arrange their supply, remove duplicates and filter search results in the best possible way to maximize conversion.

Room Mapping analyzes the rooms returned by the OTA’s various accommodation suppliers and identifies the ones that are identical and consolidates them so that each hotel, room type and price is only shown once.

One of the most widely used filters is to display the cheapest room within each room category first.

Secondly, the back-end view is more complex. Here, B2B bed banks and OTAs must use Room Mapping to dismantle unstructured data from countless sources and then build it up again in their own unique data format that allows for grouping, matching and the elimination of duplicates.

If the accuracy of the mapping is good and reliable, it can categorize, normalize and rate each room, making sure that the risk of mistakes and losing money is fully controlled.

Manual option to perform Room Mapping without tools

In the pre-internet era, travel agents and tour operators had no choice but to do their mapping manually. This involved cross-checking the inventory supplied to them by GDS and bed banks and manually correcting any inconsistencies. Efforts were made by the various parties to use the same terminology.

Manual mapping is a tedious and time-consuming job that is always vulnerable to the risk of human error. So it is perhaps surprising that the biggest travel companies in the world still use manual mapping today.

Today, we are experiencing the dawn of the AI era. The alternative is mapping services powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Only a few of these are currently good enough to offer satisfactory results. Some services combine AI features with a manual component.

How to carry out a successful Room Mapping?

Mapping services are either available as cloud-based online tools or as API (Application Programming Interface) integrations. In the first instance, most providers use a drag-and-drop interface where OTAs and accommodation suppliers can upload their files of hotel data. The files are then processed (or ‘mapped’) and sent back.

A far more efficient and integrated solution is to connect your inventory straight to a mapping API so that dynamic content like pricing is constantly updated in real-time without the need to repeatedly upload files.

Real AI-based Room Mapping constantly and accurately updates room information in real time, ensuring that clients are always up-to-date.

How it works – Room Mapping by Mize

1. We extract cluttered room data coming from different suppliers 
2. We analyze it, while distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant data, creating a new normalized and categorized data set.
3. We standardize unique room names. We group the same rooms under the new standard name based on the client’s requirements. 

The outcome – The same rooms are grouped together, the data is standardized, and our clients enjoy an organized easy-to-use room system – allowing them to manage their supply and have better conversion. 

Mize’s Room Mapping service first arose from the company’s need to create new opportunities for its clients who were using the Mize hotelfare optimization product (increasing hotel booking profit margins by reducing the purchasing costs at the post-booking stage).

Mize’s Room Mapping service is available in its own right and is not bundled together with other products.

A key part of Mize’s operation is tracking millions of rooms. Thanks to its data-driven tools, the company was able to elevate its Room Mapping service to the highest standard which rapidly became effective and is now responsible for up to 40% of the opportunities generated for Mize clients.

Over the last three years, due to its success, Mize Room Mapping has evolved to serve several purposes and become a flexible and independent tool.

It can serve simple needs such as grouping and arranging a single set of search results or it can satisfy much more complex needs.

For example, it can normalize huge amounts of unstructured data into a manageable database. This allows clients to complete the complex data-crunching of hundreds of thousands of rooms from different sources into short lists that show the actual available rooms within specific hotels.

In today’s travel industry, accurate Room Mapping is an essential tool to make sure OTAs and bed banks are operating at their full potential.

Case study

As part of the ongoing live process with the Mize Room Mapping product, we are conducting a POC according to the client’s requirements. The goal of this feasibility testing is to demonstrate our capabilities with a data sample from the client. 

In the following case study you can find the summary of the results the clients receive. The general Mize grouping, is an example of a grouping for a specific hotel and an example of a room grouping.   

This specific company is a wholesale supplier of hotel rooms, selling for online travel agencies.