semtech a travel strategy for semantic technology 060611
DESCRIPTION
Semantic Technology and the Travel Industry, with specific reference to Avis Budget Group's pioneering efforts.TRANSCRIPT
A Tr a v e l S t r a t e g y f o r
S e m a n t i c Te c h n o l o g y
Buddy Altus – Avis Budget Group
Robert Kost –THEMATIX
Agenda
Avis Budget Group and the road to Semantics
Avis Car Rental Ontology
Use Cases
Close
Av i s B u d g e t G r o u p a n d
t h e r o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
The Road to Semantics
Customers tell us how they
want to engage
“Where can I rent a Camaro?
“Can I rent a car with an MP3
jack?”
“What do you have that fits a
big man on a tight budget?”
“Can I add a friend to the
reservation?”
“You‟re sold out; now what?”
T h e R o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
Car Rental Industry Challenges
Purely transactional interactions
Competitive differentiation
Lack of granular marketing
“tail on the dog”
T h e R o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
Overcoming the Challenge
Better Industry Partner Integration
Better Product / Service Differentiation
Better Merchandising & Distribution
Finding rather than searching
T h e R o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
Why Semantic Technology?
Flexibility
Power
Association
Marketing and Merchandising
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3448804778/
T h e R o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
Why a Car Rental Ontology?
Top-line revenue
marketing driven requirements
Industry leadership and standardization
OpenTravel Alliance responsible for SOA standards;
ontology “a natural”
Expansion to air, hotel, rail and other suppliers possible and
desirable, driven by interoperability concerns
Occurring in context of the growing importance of
data strategy
The Road to Semantics
What We Did
Create an ontology for specific use cases
Establish a „proprietary standard”
Begin to execute the use cases
But a proprietary-standard does not scale
Help build an industry standard
Travel is a deeply interrelated industry value chain
Travel distribution is a highly automated and realtime
system: arguably, the largest eCommerce category on the
internet
The Industry need standards for interoperability
The Open Travel Alliance: XML web services standards
Others: ATPCO, IATA, Open Axis…
T h e R o a d t o S e m a n t i c s
Ontology project, driven by interest in
better governance,
better search optimization and leverage,
better marketing, merchandising,
CRM and analytics
Improved intra-domain and cross-domain search
functionality
Use OTA to drive adoption of car rental ontology, and
thereafter other travel ontologies
T h e Av i s O n t o l o g y
O n t o l o g y C o m p o n e n t s
The ontology intends to model the Avis line of business, and from the perspective of sales and marketing, but not from the perspective of
operations. Thus, functions that are not of interest to the consumer, sales staff or marketing staff are not included in the model.
CarRentalAgent
FacilityCarRentalFacilit
y
Vehicles
offering
ISO 1087 AvisCarRent
al
P r e l i m i n a r y O n t o l o g y
A r c h i t e c t u r e
Basic Terminology & Ontology Metadata
Language CountriesGeospatial &
AddressingTime & UoM
Agents/People FacilitiesContracts &
OffersBasic CRM
General Renter
Profile
Rental Car
Facilities
Rental Contracts
& OffersRental Eligibility
Vehicle
Description
ACRISS / OTA
Vehicle Codes
Avis Wizard
ProfileAvis Facilities
Avis Contracts &
Offers
Avis Eligibility
Requirements
Avis Vehicle
Description
Avis Vehicle
Classification
Metadata
Standard UtilityConcepts
Business Capability Concepts
Common Domain Terminology
Avis Specific Terminology
W h a t i s t h e O n t o l o g y U l t i m a t e l y
G o o d F o r ?
Responding to customers the way a person might
Natural language with semantic interpretation
Making differential offers
Determining or suggesting customer rates, cars
Inferring and responding to customer intent
“are you in town for …?” “may we suggest …”
Providing powerful business analytics
Heterogeneous facts in unique, ad hoc combination
S e m a n t i c U s e C a s e s
Synthetic Merchandising
Search Engine Enhancement
Smart Search
Ancillary / Cross-sell
S e m a n t i c M e r c h a n d i s i n g
“Comfort-
Oriented”
Flight
Attribute 1
Attribute 2
Leg Room
Attribute 4
Attribute 5
Attribute 5
On-Off Access
Attribute 7
Attribute 8
Attribute 9
Media Options
Attribute 11
Attribute 12
Meal Options
Attribute 14
Attribute 15
Time of Day
Attribute 17
Attribute 18
Distance to Gate
Attribute 20
Attribute 21
Flight Characteristics
Attribute N
…
S e a r c h E n h a n c e m e n t
Search engines as a “front
door”
dramatically increase relevance by
inclusion of more
meaningful, synonymic tags
Enrich search results, adding
ratings, video, prices, avails,
amenities, locality etc.
S m a r t S e a r c h
Search of Avis produces user intent, leading directly to a booking.
For Example: Search term “performance cars” maps to ontology class PerformanceCars.
PerformanceCars is defined by factors including gross horsepower and power to weight ratio
PerformanceCars class contains many car classes: CamaroSS, CadillacCTS, FordMustang, BMW328i
Return list of PerformanceCars car classes available at Avis
If search terms do not map to ontology, default to existing text search
S m a r t S e a r c h
S a m e “ O u t s i d e a n d I n s i d e ” o f
A v i s . c o m
A n c i l l a r y a n d C r o s s - P a r t n e r
S a l e
“Business Trip w/ Family”
• 2 adults
• 2 children < 10 yrs
• 1st class
• Member OnePass + Avis
Premier
• 3rd time to Orlando
• Residence Zip Code 10011
• 3 bags
M o r e u s e c a s e s …
Location and Event related services
Data mash-ups providing valuable customer
packages or advisories
Social media applications that “wrap”
conventional bookings in different workflows
Itinerary advisors, accommodating
changes, warning of events, providing
alternatives
Smart Itineraries (TripIt?)
…
Vision
Travel agents to return!
Standardized, shared meaning facilitates common
operations to be performed across many suppliers
Fulfilling on the SOA vision
The Customer Experience is both real and virtual
Use semantics to provide services not heretofore
possible
Provide tools for finding, rather than searching
The customer is a search term
Reach through all available media
Distributed customer entry points for bookings
T h a n k y o u