Wiidii, the 1st hybrid personal assistant

The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) was held in mid-January 2017. On this occasion, nearly 600 start-ups, including about 230 French companies, took advantage of this showcase to present their innovations and in particular in the tourism industry. This is the case of Wiidii, a French Start-up. In 2016, Wiidii has already been awarded by Atout France with the Numerical Tourism Label and by Alain Juppé with the Forum of Innovations of Bordeaux Label.  The company stands out at the CES thanks to its system which combines artificial intelligence and a true high-end human concierge service. 

How does it work? 

This application is only reserved for professionals and works in French, English and Chinese.  This innovative tool follows the customer everywhere and responds to all its demands immediately. The customer just has to talk to the application and it gives a personalized answer according to tastes, budget or even habits both vocally and in writing. Wiidii's capabilities are huge. It learns every day in order to better assist the client and respond in the most efficient way. Its intelligent search engine grows every day thanks to all users.

What are the goals of Wiidii?

This application has several main goals. The first one is to recommend great places to visit. Wiidii makes also reservations such as plane, restaurant or hotel and takes appointments by adding directly in the agenda of the client after calling customer’s doctor for example. Not to mention that this tool also manages the reminders. Moreover, Wiidii searches all the information on the Internet in order to save time. Finally, the tool saves all important documents client such as passport or driver’s license.

This tool has already attracted many companies including Zodiac Nautic, the Office of Tourism and Congress of Bordeaux Métropole, Welcome Chinese, Palais des Festivals in Cannes, Nice Côte d'Azur Airport, Beforgo, Paris Inn Group and drivers with groups such as Air France KLM, Hertz Europe, Voyages-Sncf and EDF.

Written by Perrine DEBUIRE & Clementine LIGNIER

Sources:

• http://www.lechotouristique.com/article/innovations-au-ces-2017-ce-que-les-pros-du-tourisme-doivent-savoir-et-retenir,86786

• http://hospitality-on.com/actualites/2017/01/09/que-retenir-du-ces-2017-de-las-vegas-pour-le-tourisme/

• http://www.tourmag.com/Wiidii-l-intelligence-artificielle-a-la-conquete-du-monde-du-tourisme_a79871.html

• http://www.wiidii.com/francais/#application

New useful event apps

In the event industry the use of technology is increasing. From meetings to exhibitions, event planner are using new technology to attract more people and to interact with them. Mobile applications for example have and will transform how events are managed.

More than 300 mobile event applications are available online. Event professionals have many choices regarding their conferences or events. They can find simple applications like an agenda or advanced one to create audience engagement during a conference.

Corbin Ball, international speaker, consultant and an expert when it comes to technology is reviewing in his article six new applications related to the event industry:

• ·       InitLive
• ·       ATIV Software
• ·       BlueStone Nexus
• ·       Listly
• ·       Conferences.io
• ·       Eventbase

InitLive for example is really attractive and easy to use (see videobelow). This cloud-based application helps event managers manage staff and volunteers. They can see checking and last minute schedule or even communicate with everyone before, during and after the event. The product is not on the market yet but has already been tested with a reasonable pricing. As a student you can get 25% discount.

All of these events tools are created to help meeting professionals to have a more effective event. Indeed professional applications have strong features with a wide range of tools and design.

Before the event, event managers can use those applications to obtain a quick and efficient registration check-in procedure. During a conference, with applications like ATIV Software and Conference.io attendees can now interact with a speaker, ask questions, vote for question and receive all the slides with notes. Regarding the Networking as it is an important goal when organising an event, applications like eventbase or BlueStone Nexus is helping delegates to create a network with other delegates. BlueStone Nexus is using the mobile phone to capture business card information in order to create an exchange between professionals. Eventbase is using the Beacons technology which is the new must have in the event industry. This app can put in your area of interest and know who is around you from 1 to 5 meters. The delegates receive a notification when a delegate share the same interest. This encourage people to meet and talk to each other.

These applications are just a few of many great other applications. They bring people together, add simplicity and fun in the event industry. They are the future! Don’t be afraid to use them!

Camille Salomon & Anthony Calzi

Sources:

http://www.corbinball.com/article2/36-mobile-and-wireless-technology/178-six-novel-and-useful-event-apps
http://www.initlive.com/

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Guest in the City – the Airbnb of the leisure industry?

Guest in the City is a collaborative platform allowing French or foreign tourists to book meals and activities with French locals (cooking class, wine tasting, guided tours…). The objective is to offer a friendlier kind of tourism and authentic experiences with locals. People from different nationalities can meet and share their culture and way of living.

The website has been launch in October 2015 by Frank & Véronique Prabel, co-founder of Guest in the City. They decided to develop this project because they found that it is not always easy to meet the locals when travelling. Guest in the City offers a connection between the tourists and the hosts wishing to share their passions or welcome people at their places.  

 Source: http://www.guestinthecity.com/

Everybody can become a member of the Guest in the City community. You can be a French tourist but also an inhabitant of a neighborhood wishing to book and share an activities or dinner with a host staying in your area. In the future the platform would like to expand to the BtoB market and attract cultural or sportive event manager looking for new places, rooms or activities for their events.

But how does it work?  
The tourists or users of the platform can book their activities and pay the price fixed by the hosts directly on the site.

Source: http://www.guestinthecity.com/

Guest in the City takes a commission of 15% on the amount paid by the customers as the service fees but the hosts do not need to pay to publish a post. Each host is selected and validated by the team of Guest in the City to create a community in which tourists and users of the platform can trust and to assure the quality of the services offered. All the posts are available in French and English to increase the number of potential bookings.

100 posts are now available on the platform (April 2016). The objective of the team of Guest in the City is to reach 300 posts by the end of 2016 and more than 1,000 post by the end of 2017.

Surfing on the “collaborative economy” wave, this new start up offers an easy way to give a new dimension to our travels. Useful for both international and national travellers this concept allows travellers to be closer to locals and to discover more about the habits of the place they are visiting. For now, the start up is only starting to work and focus mostly on France but can easily expand to be used for other countries and offer more activities. 

Lucile BESSON & Léa MARET

Sources:

http://www.tourmag.com/Guest-in-the-City-veut-devenir-le-Airbnb-du-loisir_a79811.html

http://www.guestinthecity.com/fr/

http://bonjouridee.com/guestinthecity/

The new Accor mobile application has been awarded !

Some months ago, AccorHotels launched a new version of its mobile application in order to improve guests experience. They have been rewarded during the "Trophee des Apps" ceremony.

This Application enables travelers, whether business or leisure, to optimize their time by getting all information on the same platform. I do personally use it every time I travel in an AccorHotels property.

How does it meet guests' expectations?

Guests have the opportunity to:

Select a hotel among a wide range of brands, all introduced on the App

Find information about hotel location, facilities and services

Book online

Discover the online City Guide to better prepare their stay

Manage their loyalty accounts

Learn latest news and offers of the Group

Since July 2015, the application is even available on Apple Watch. Romain Roulleau, AccorHotels’ SVP e-commerce and director of the “mobile first” program explains:

“By launching this AccorHotels application for Apple Watch™, AccorHotels is establishing itself as an audacious digital hospitality player.”

This application enhances the huge potential of AccorHotels Digital Transformation.

Of course, we hope that other features will be developed soon. Some competitor hotels provide guests with tablets so that they can adjust temperature or lighting in their room. In order to personalize their stays, customers can even sometimes beneficiate from an e-concierge which enable them to order breakfast in the room, make dinner reservations, to request extra pillows…without moving from their rooms.”

Indeed, the hotel group is doing its mobile revolution to keep one single app.
Customers have on average 23 applications in their smartphone, including 3-4 dedicated to travel: TripAdvisor, one online travel agency, and one to go around. The third or fourth may be the one of a chain hotel. Accor want to be part of this selection. That is why they will have one application for all trademarks of Accorhotels. The group will multippliate the reasons for a traveler to have the Accor Hotel app in his smartphone. Thus they can be differentiated themselves from online agencies.

The French group has integrated last years the service Wipolo, the startups they bought in 2014 and already added Uber upon check-in.

Tailored services are as well offered within the hotel, such as restaurant reservations, spa, room service ...

 Accor wants to offer a complete experience before, during, and after the stay of the guests.

Mobile, including smartphones and tablets, attracts nearly 40% of the global audience, and 12% of direct digital sales. The delta is explained. Travelers often use their smartphone on the move, in public places. They did not necessarily want to take out their credit card and enter their details, in transport for example. To improve their conversion rate, they will adopt the second half of the 1-Click payment, such as Amazon's bank details are already entered, the purchase is validated with a single click.

Accor wants its staff to provide personalized service instead of being bogged down filling out paperwork to register guests.

Accor’s guests can do this advance check-in only if they’ve have booked their reservation directly through Accor or if they are loyalty program members or subscription cardholders.

On the day of the stay, guests receive a welcome text message confirming that the room key and room are available. The text may also provide practical tips about the property, such as ground transportation information and parking access codes, for example.

When guests arrive at the property instead of needing to provide credit card information and fill out paperwork, “the hotel staff is supposed to greet them immediately upon arrival in the lobby or possibly even in the hotel bar, hand them their room key, and answer any questions or handle special requests”, Accor says.

Christine Pouletty, who managed the project’s introduction, says early feedback shows that 93% of guests who used the service during a trial period indicated they would do so again. And, 40% of guests did the advance check-in with their smartphones, she adds.

“Queues are diminishing and hoteliers are more available for their guests,” Pouletty says. “They can devote themselves completely to their passion, the job of host.”