Navan has released a new hotel catalogue infrastructure aimed at helping corporate travellers navigate inconsistent room and rate information.
The tool hopes to solve a problem that has long irked the industry: unreliable data that often results in multiple conflicting listings or duplicate entries for the same room.
Navan’s new tool ensures travellers only see rooms that actually exist, according to Dane Molter, SVP of Travel Marketplace at Navan. Users will also see photography that accurately reflects the specific room they are browsing.
Previous industry attempts to consolidate hotel room data have often struggled to handle the complexity involved in managing such a vast number of sources. To combat this, Navan has utilised AI to condense multiple online sources into a single, clear booking item.
To achieve this, the company has designed two new pieces of technology. The first is its Unified Room Catalogue, which organises and tidies information for every hotel on the platform. The second is its Room Intelligence Mapper, an AI-powered tool that acts as a ‘universal translator’ to convert messy, fragmented descriptions into one accurate listing.
The product removes the need for the traveller to engage with the complexity of back-end services. Instead, it renders an array of rate options – from loyalty-point-eligible refundable rates to last-minute deals – available for self-service on a single platform.
Navan hopes the infrastructure will serve as a scalable foundation for a future ‘Navan lodging marketplace’, which will allow for further inventory expansion and direct connections.
“Travellers shouldn’t have to play detective to figure out if two different room listings are actually the same,” said Dane Molter, SVP of Travel Marketplace at Navan. “By using LLMs [large language models] as a universal translator, we’ve eliminated the duplicate listings that clutter search results and improved how rates get matched to rooms.
“Today, travellers using Navan only see rooms that actually exist, with more rate options, and more detailed information and photography.”
