Multi-Night Lodging Rate Optimization via Segmented Booking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing online travel agencies (OTAs) fail to ensure cost-conscious consumers obtain the best possible deal for multi-night lodging stays, as they do not provide transparent information on nightly rates and do not allow reservations to be made across multiple providers, leading to higher costs due to lack of access to individual nightly rates and inability to book separate nights through different systems.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that obtain lodging rate information from multiple sources, compare rates for each night of a desired multi-night stay, and generate reservations through different systems to assemble a composite itinerary offering the lowest total rate, while also considering rate changes and potential room switches or location changes for savings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If consumers book multi-night stays through a single OTA, then the booking process is simple and convenient, but they cannot access the lowest possible rates across multiple providers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments a multi-night lodging stay into individual nightly reservations. Instead of booking the entire stay as one unit through a single OTA, the system breaks it down by night and searches for the lowest rate for each night across multiple OTAs and providers independently, then combines these segmented reservations into a complete itinerary.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges reservations from multiple different OTAs and lodging providers into a single composite itinerary. The system combines individually optimized nightly reservations from various sources (Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, provider websites, etc.) to create a complete multi-night stay plan that achieves lower total cost than any single provider could offer.
2Loss of information
If consumers search multiple OTAs and providers for the best rates, then they can access more pricing information, but the complexity of managing multiple bookings increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary system that acts as a mediator between consumers and multiple OTAs/providers. This intermediary automatically searches, compares, and secures the lowest rates across multiple sources, then presents a unified itinerary to the consumer. The consumer interacts with a single interface while the intermediary handles the complexity of coordinating multiple underlying bookings.
3Ease of operation
If consumers book through a single provider for the entire stay, then the reservation is simple to manage, but they miss opportunities for rate variations across different nights
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamic optimization to lodging reservations by treating each night's rate as a variable that can be independently optimized. Instead of a static single-rate booking, the system dynamically selects the lowest available rate for each night across multiple providers, allowing the itinerary to adapt to rate variations throughout the stay period.
Data Source
AI summary
A lowest rate on a multi-night lodging stay is achieved by obtaining lodging rate information for a first lodging location from a plurality of lodging rate sources. The information is correlated with a desired multi-night lodging stay to locate a lowest lodging rate for each of the nights of the desired multi-night lodging stay. Then, a plurality of lodging reservations corresponding to the multi-night lodging stay are generated, wherein at least two of the lodging reservations correspond to different nights of the multi-night lodging stay and are placed through different lodging reservation systems.