Travel & Hospitality · Enterprise · Germany
Redesigning hotel booking around how people actually choose.
Hotel.de needed to improve conversion, retention and CAC – and AKQA was asked to completely reinvent how customers search and book hotels on the platform, with a focus on the 'Business Explorer' segment.
From the customer's perspective, the reason was obvious. Search results on booking platforms are like a firehose – hundreds of options, none of them speaking to what actually matters to you.
We designed a booking experience that would feel like having your PA book a room for you – a service that knows you so well it only shows you what matters.
At the heart of the concept was a personalised recommendation engine. Every hotel was scored across three dimensions – Comfort, Convenience, and Coolness – and matched to individual preferences using machine learning and behavioural data. Someone who likes to run before work and eat out locally would see a completely different hotel description from someone who prioritises late checkout and a lobby bar. Same inventory, radically different experiences.
The concept was validated through research, design, and early development of the engine – but the finished product never shipped.
'We wanted booking a hotel to feel like your PA had done it – someone who knows you well enough that you never have to scroll.'
Even when you have a compelling product proposition, sometimes resources get diverted to a quicker win with long-term systemic benefits.
The recommendation engine was being developed in parallel with a deeper piece of work – an innovation platform to serve all of the HRS Group's brands. The client chose to go all-in on the platform, and the returns justified it. The group went from shipping updates three times a year to three times a day, with improvements and efficiencies set to save millions of euros annually.
The consumer product work informed the platform's direction, and the platform created the infrastructure to bring products like it to market – faster and at scale.
Anthony, Stephen and Kenn were already working as a team on other Hotel.de projects in AKQA London. They moved to Berlin and I joined them, working hands-on.
