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As Japan is gearing up for 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, online travel platform Expedia aims to double its hotel listing in the country. Mark Okerstrom, CEO of Expedia has confirmed that the online travel company is aiming to double Japanese hotels listings on its website to 22,000.
Okerstrom also highlighted that the company could also offer to all the Japanese hotel operators artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to suggest ways that hotels can make their products more attractive to customers, such as pricing recommendations.
Okerstrom said that Japanese hotels could use a new service called Rev+ launched last year that uses real-time customer demand data and competitive pricing information to help hotels set prices more flexibly.
Expedia currently operates in over 75 countries and a gross booking of nearly USD 90 billion handled last year, the top executive sees a growing business opportunity in Japan.
The world’s third-largest economy has seen record levels of foreign visitors in recent years. The government is seeking to increase the number of inbound tourists from over 28 million in 2017 to 40 million in 2020 when the Tokyo Games will be held.
Okerstrom said that they will increase the focus for market expansion. He said wants to help more local governments in Japan promote their tourist attractions and drive more international travellers into Japan not only to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto but to other regions. In a country like Japan, they ensure that they have the full breadths of all travel products, airlines, hotels, car rentals, alternative accommodation.
In April, Expedia signed an agreement to promote tourism with Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan and is looking for more partners, Okerstrom said. Expedia will continue to invest in research and development for the voice-controlled personal assistant, virtual reality and artificial intelligence technology to offer more customised travel services, the CEO said.
Source: travelnewsdigest.in
