Double-Digit Growth with Bookassist's AI Booking Platform

Bookassist is rolling out the new AI Booking Platform featuring the industry-first AI Rate Recommender. Bookassist Founder & Chairman Dr Des O'Mahony recently presented the latest statistics from the roll-out of the platform up to the end of the third quarter of 2025. Bookassist Marketing Executive Fabien Clary discussed the findings with Des and what the future holds for the platform's development.

Fabien: You've been talking about how the new AI Booking Platform is bringing serious improvement to hotels throughout 2025, can you give us specific results that show its impact?

Des: We are still in transition with the AI Booking Platform, but the whole point of the change and the investment that we've made was, firstly, to reduce booker friction and make booking easier and more likely and, secondly, to improve the number and value of bookings that our client hotels get. 

It's important to describe what we measure and how we do it. We looked at how our hotels were performing year on year (YoY) before we switched them to the new AI Booking Platform. We then measured their YoY performance after the switch for a continuous period, 2 months minimum. So we didn't just pick that one good statistic! Looking at this change in YoY performance over a few months eliminates lots of issues like seasonality, moveable holidays, availability issues etc. So the results are pretty clean and unambiguous.

AI Booking Platform statistics for the Top 100 Bookassist Hotels

What we found for top 100 hotels was on average a clear 12% increase in the number of bookings achieved in terms of YoY change. There's no ambiguity in counting the number of bookings, you either get them or you don't, so it's a much better and simpler yardstick than something completely nebulous like conversion say (which was also similarly up but that's another story).

If we zone in on the top 25 Bookassist clients, those that work at a very high level with us on direct booking strategy, that improvement rises to 22% increase in their bookings on average, so the AI Booking Platform can be used as a real strategic tool. Some hotels are performing up to 40% better, particularly where they had quite complex setups that could lead to the kind of "choice paralysis" that customers sometimes face, and which AI Rate Recommender is dramatically simplifying.

Looking right across the 400 or so hotels that we have migrated so far, we see an 8% increase in bookings on average, a winning result for all hotels. And that's bookings, not something notional, so this corresponds to very real money, in the hundreds of thousands of Euro for some hotels in additional revenue. 

"There's no ambiguity in counting the number of bookings, you either get them or you don't"

Fabien: Impressive, but what are the main reasons for the bookings improvements? Are hotels changing what they are selling also?

Des: The hotels on the whole are not changing their setups, that's not the main reason for the improvements. Some in the top 25, top 50 are making changes to what they offer because the feedback we give them from Bookassist Intelligence is allowing them to make smarter decisions about how to use the AI Booking Platform. But the majority of improvement is down to the AI Booking Platform design.

Because of really intelligent user interface design, AI Booking Platform delivers a stunning 78% reduction in rejections, in other words it removes barriers to people finding what they want quickly. The strategic presentation of AI curated rates in our AI Rate Recommender strip, right at the top of room listings, is now accounting for 42% of all bookings - people find what they want right there and don't have to scroll or waste time looking around. If you add in the intelligent filtering that lists the most likely suitable rates below Rate Recommender, a further 54% of bookers find what they need there. That's 96% of all bookers finding what they want above the fold on AI Booking Platform - no scrolling, no searching around. Just perfectly curated solutions every time. This is an incredible success when you think about it, and when you consider the complexity of rates and offers that many hotels have available these days.

AI Booking Platform user interface performance results in 96% of users selecting their rooms from Above the Fold (ATF) without ever having to scroll or search Below the Fold (BTF), 

From a booking flow perspective, we see 16% more add-to-cart action. This shows a lot more user intent and engagement. And overall it takes 20% less clicks to complete a booking now, again keeping it simple and reducing friction.

Fabien: Is every hotel guaranteed this kind of improvement?

Des: The figures are averages for the top 100, so some hotels are doing a lot better than this, and a small number less so. But what is clear is that those hotels who are more strategically minded are doing far better with AI Booking Platform, so the platform absolutely works - the capability of the platform as a strategic tool is clear. Hotels who are achieving less growth can assess their strategy with our Customer Success Team and learn from our statistics so that they can strive to reach even higher in terms of what the platform is capable of delivering for them.

The bottom line is that this is a pretty spectacular success no matter how you measure it. With AI Booking Platform we make your bookings more likely, as well as making your bookings more profitable. And we are just at the start of the journey with this technology. There's so many other new features here under the hood that are improving booker flow and ending frustrations, the funnel conversion already bests anything that's in the marketplace today and will continue to push ahead. Watch this space.