How HomeToGo is using big data to tailor the travel experience

From beach to bar, Wifi to wheelchair access, dog-friendly parks and detailed pricing structures, there is no end to the demands of travellers, but a Berlin-based meta is working to simplify the experience

The requirements of each and every consumer planning a trip will vary and, as such, most sites today offer varying degrees of filtering.

Metasearch engine HomeToGo, which thinks of itself as the Google of holiday rentals, scans 2.9 million homes from 200 countries using advanced data techniques to deliver results that most closely matches a user’s desired holiday home.

Here is how:

  • Smart filtering and mapping techniques 

HomeToGo’s search engine scans through over 150 holiday rental websites and filters the results based on location, availability, size and price. According to Sergiu George, UK General Manager, HomeToGo, “this abundance of choice is particularly useful when digging deeper into advanced search”.

Considering that all physical addresses of available holiday homes are placed on a map, it’s possible to filter a search by distance to water if, for example, you’re looking for a place near the beach. On the other hand, if you’re staying in a city, the map allows you to chose a location that is, for instance, near a recommended park.

Further filtering of holiday homes is based on amenities such as Wifi, parking or wheelchair access.

  • Detection of multiple listings

HomeToGo’s search algorithm also detects the holiday homes that are listed on several websites, giving the price listed on each one of them, within one search result.

George claims thatone of the things that sets HomeToGo apart from the competition, is that it doesn’t duplicate listings. “If a property is listed on ten vacation rental websites and five of them are our partners, we'd only list the property once, but will show the prices from each partner,” he says.

It then goes a step further by ranking results based on reviews, the number of bookings a property has had and cancellation rates to name a few. As such, says George, the search results pages are constantly optimised to show the best options first.

Although price is one unique selling point, the firm is also focused closely on the convenience and quality of properties. 

  • Harnessing big data to bring more transparency and better decision-making to holiday rentals

Although HomeToGo cites “a fairly intuitive user interface” as an “already significant achievement”, the firm is now moving towards making the world’s vacation rentals market fully transparent.

The next step is evaluating the big data, which is managers entirely in-house, from the changes in search results to track the price variation of vacation rentals throughout seasons.

In time, it is hoped that this will make the holiday rentals market more transparent to the general public. “The aim here is to allow a higher booking rate for landlords, while also highlighting offers for price sensitive buyers,” says George.

The recently published HomeToGo 2015 Summer Study report does just that.

It shows the price difference between the high season in July and August and the low season in September 2015, pointing out the destination cities and resorts in Europe that offer the highest savings in September.

In one example, this infographic highlights the high and low season variations of 25 countries for a one-week stay with four guests.

Data: 2015, HomeToGo.co.uk

2015 Price Comparison Study of Holiday Rentals in Europe

HomeToGo’s aim is to find new ways to present the data so that every user understands it and can make better decisions as a result.

  • Taking partner needs seriously

In terms of marketing efforts, the group’s customers come mainly through SEM and SEO channels. HomeToGo then generates revenue from the traffic or potential bookings made on partners’ websites, working mainly on a cost-per-click basis.

“A key point in business model is the quality of the traffic going to our partners,” says George. 

Unlike the traffic coming from SEM or affiliate sources, traffic going to partners from HomeToGo is from users that expressed interest in one particular property from one of the partner websites the property is listed on.

“We also enforce our partner's brand throughout the entire process,” he concludes.

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