Booking.com launches Citybook app in London, Paris and Amsterdam
New York: Digital travel platform Booking.com has announced the launch of a new companion app to its current services- Citybook.
Designed to assist travellers once in their destination, providing curated recommendations, offers and discounts on food and activities, and providing helpful information for tourists to get accustomed to their surroundings.
The app will also provide Booking.com with information about the priorities of travellers in turn, determining what is most relevant to them in-destination. By using machine learning models, which take into account location, group makeup, time left in their trip, weather and availability, Citybook makes recommendations that are tailored to each individual traveller using the platform.
Ram Papatla, vice president of experiences at Booking.com, said: “Bouncing between dozens of sites and apps to get the best information and then still having to book everything separately is not the most enjoyable or seamless process. We want to help people focus on the fun part of travel planning – inspiration – and make the booking and organisation for a trip a snap, with actionable content that’s all bookable in a couple of taps and all conveniently organised in one place.”
The app is available across three platforms, iOS, Android and on web, with the full trip experience synched, so customers can access their trip details from either. While the app is currently only available in London, Paris and Amsterdam, the company has plans to expand soon, with Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Barcelona and Rome as possible choices.
Booking.com has been expanding its technological footprint recently, renewing its partnership with Google Nest to help improve smart accommodation for its partners, as well as with NoiseAware to increase its noise monitoring capacity.
Papatla said: “Exploring these new functionalities and a more connected in-trip experience through a pilot product like CityBook, enables us to innovate quickly, collate learnings and iterate in an even more agile fashion and with a heightened level of focus.”
For more information, visit the Booking.com website here.
