The concept behind Hospitality ID is simple. It is a nonprofit global registry that assigns a persistent, unique ID to every hospitality property. This provides an easily deployed method for the industry to efficiently share information between business partners, vendors, tech stack components and guests. One word describes the primary benefit of Hospitality ID – interoperability.
What Is Hospitality ID?
The Unique Hospitality Identifier (UHI) assigned to each property identifies the real estate asset, similar to how UPC barcodes drive global commerce or IATA airport and airline codes facilitate air travel.
The UHI survives the ownership, brand and technology changes that currently wreak havoc for operators, travel sellers and guests. Hospitality ID uniquely enables the permissioned sharing of links to owners, management companies, brands, systems of record, and certifications, similar to how Internet Domain Name System (DNS) pointers link to websites and email servers.
Initial deployment is straightforward – adding a column to existing property mapping tables. Most importantly, Hospitality ID isn't a data store, transaction processing platform or standards body. It's a registry that empowers users to decide what they share, with whom, for what purpose and for how long.
Tangible Benefits and Value Creation
Hospitality ID mitigates longstanding industry issues by delivering three strategic benefits:
- BETTER QUALITY DATA
By allowing hoteliers, technology vendors and travel sellers to clearly define their own authoritative sources of truth, Hospitality ID dramatically improves data quality, facilitating reliable and timely data sharing across the industry. Participants gain greater control over the distribution of their own data, managing permissioned sharing across business relationships and technology resources. This approach also safeguards intellectual property and reduces fraud risk. - COST CONTAINMENT
Some full-service hotels manage 50+ disparate systems, resulting in cumbersome integration and change management processes. Complex distribution networks
pass data through multi-layered tiers of agencies, wholesalers, aggregators and retailers that complicate content management updates, necessitating mapping and synchronization methods that are prone to error. Travel seller-sector founder Booking Holdings, projects that Hospitality ID will reduce engineering time spent on integrations by 80%. Simplified property mapping and streamlined content updates significantly lower operational overheads and customer service error recovery costs. The registry bolsters initiatives focused on achieving personalization at scale by supporting digital identity and verifiable credentials. - REVENUE ENHANCEMENT
Hotel brand changes often result in distribution disruptions lasting weeks to months due to technical and operational integration delays. By establishing a persistent identifier that survives brand transitions, Hospitality ID facilitates seamless continuity, enabling immediate and accurate distribution and sales at the time of transition. This boosts revenues and reduces guest confusion over these critical periods. By simplifying business relationships and system integrations, Hospitality ID radically increases the number of new business opportunities and technical integrations across the industry.
Alignment with Important Industry Goals
Hospitality ID supports major strategic objectives spanning the global hospitality and travel industries, including the enablement of advanced technologies. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital identity demand precise, authoritative sources of truth to function efficiently.
The registry bolsters initiatives focused on achieving personalization at scale by supporting digital identity and verifiable credentials. It enhances clarity surrounding booking attribution by helping identify rate leakage and reducing confusion about booking sources and offer eligibility. Hospitality ID facilitates the industry's vision for a connected trip by simplifying the integration of lodging with transportation, dining, and activity providers to offer travelers seamless and coordinated guest experiences.
Hospitality ID accomplishes this and literally hundreds of other use cases by ensuring neutrality and fostering industry-wide collaboration through its structure as a nonprofit 501(c)(6) business league. It will be governed by a nine-member board representing hoteliers, technology providers, travel sellers and industry associations.
With Booking Holdings already confirmed as the travel seller-sector founder, the organization has also earned the support of AHLA, HFTP, HSMAI and the OpenTravel Alliance.
The Big Question for the Industry
The success of the technology industry is measured by the delivery of faster, cheaper and better solutions. Hospitality ID is uniquely positioned to streamline industry operations, promote cost efficiency, and reduce implementation timelines.
The question for hospitality industry leaders is straightforward: Can you identify an industry initiative likely to deliver a greater impact, at a lower cost, within a shorter timeframe?
The sole goal of Hospitality ID is to simplify hospitality through interoperability. Once the six founders are confirmed, expect a big announcement.
We hope you will consider becoming a launch partner to take advantage of a newly leveled playing field that is primed for innovation.
