Hospitality Glossary
Explore the most relevant hospitality words from A to Z
A
Agent (Console Agent)
In the context of HiJiffy, an agent is a user of our Console. Agents can have different permissions that determine the scope of actions and features available to them in the Console.
Aplysia OS
Aplysia OS is the first Guest Communications Operating System. It is powered by our proprietary AI, the most advanced one in the hospitality industry. Aplysia OS has a self-learning NLP, a powerful sentiment analysis, and much more. Read all about Aplysia on a dedicated page.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be defined as computer systems that are able to perform various tasks that would usually require human intelligence to be performed. At HiJiffy we continuously develop our bespoke conversational AI, Aplysia OS, which has powerful capabilities such as understanding emotions, a self-learning NLP, syntax and semantic analysis, and much more. Learn about our Artificial Intelligence on a dedicated page.
Automation
Automation can be defined as an application of AI technology to various processes so that they be performed without human input. One of the examples of automation is the use of our conversational AI to guide hotel website visitors through the online booking process and answer any questions the guests may have.
Automation Rate
One of the metrics that you can see in the Console or in our case studies is automation rate. In this context, it refers to the percentage of requests automatically solved by the AI-powered virtual agent (i.e. without any human agent interaction).
Average Bed Rate (ABR)
The Average Bed Rate is the total amount that is charged for beds divided by the total number of beds sold. In the hospitality industry, ABR is a useful metric for revenue managers.
Average Booking Value per Available Room (ABVPAR)
The ABVPAR is a metric in the hospitality industry that can be calculated by multiplying the number of occupied rooms by the difference between the Average Daily Rate (ADR) and the Cost Per Occupied Room (CPOR).
Average Daily Rate (ADR)
The Average Daily Rate is a metric in hospitality calculated by dividing daily revenue by the total number of rooms sold.
Average Length of Stay (ALOS)
The ALOS metric in the hospitality industry refers to the number of days guests are at a hotel during a specific period. This metric varies a lot depending on the season and type of accommodation, for example, holiday resorts will have a higher ALOS compared to city hotels that tend to be popular for weekend getaways.
Average Room Rate (ARR)
The ARR can be calculated by dividing the total room revenue by the total number of rooms occupied. Unlike ADR, this metric is used to measure KPIs for longer periods of time.
B
Best Available Rate (BAR)
Also known as the Best Flexible Rate (BFR), this refers to the lowest booking rate available to all guests, i.e. not-restricted rate. The Best Available Rate can change depending on the time of day, week, or season.
Best Rate Guarantee (BRG)
The Best Rate Guarantee is a sales and marketing tactic promising that the rate offered on the hotel or accommodation provider’s website is better compared to the other websites (for example, OTAs) for the same booking.
Booking Assistant
HiJiffy’s Booking Assistant is an omnichannel communications solution powered by conversational AI. It guides hotel website visitors through the booking process and answers their questions instantly. Learn all about our Booking Assistant.
Booking Channel
A booking channel is any sales channel or communication platform where guests can book their stay. It can be a hotel website, an OTA, social media, partners’ websites, and direct offline bookings.
Booking Engine
A booking engine is an online system that can be used by prospective hotel guests to check room availability and make reservations and bookings. It can be made available through various online booking channels and integrated with other hotel systems. See the list of booking engine integrations with the HiJiffy conversational AI.
Booking Pixel
A booking pixel (also known as a conversion pixel) is a JavaScript code that tracks specific actions that users on your website are taking. To keep track of the bookings generated with the help of our conversational AI, we provide a conversion pixel which you can install on your booking engine to register successful bookings.
C
Call to Action (CTA)
A CTA is a prompt that encourages taking a specific action, for example, a “Book Now” banner on a hotel website, a “Read More” hyperlink in a newsletter, or a “Call Now” button in a mobile app.
Central Reservation System (CRS)
A software application used to manage hotel room reservations across an online network of various distribution channels, from direct bookings on the hotel website, through phone bookings with a reservations team, to bookings made through external networks such as OTAs.
Channel Management (CM)
Channel management is a practice of controlling hotel room rates and inventory across different distribution channels, including the hotel website, third-party networks, OTAs, and more.
Chatbot
A chatbot is a software designed to simulate a conversation with a human agent. Within the context of the hospitality industry, a hotel chatbot is a communication channel between a hotel and its current and prospective guests. Chatbots powered by conversational AI allow for a high level of personalisation and automation, reducing or eliminating completely the need for a human agent intervention as guests can have their queries answered instantly.
Closed Conversation
In the context of HiJiffy’s Console, a closed conversation is one that is resolved after a human intervention was requested by the conversational AI or a guest.
Console
The HiJiffy Console is a single powerful platform that centralises, automates and measures your communications and customer care. Learn all about the Console here.
Console Agent
A user within our Console. The agents can have different permission settings which change the scope of features and actions available to them in the Console.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI refers to a set of technologies enabling human-like interaction through automated messaging (or speech). It is able to detect text (and speech), interpret the intent, understand different languages, and reply providing answers to posed questions in a chat-like manner. Conversational AI relies on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning. Learn about HiJiffy’s proprietary conversational AI here.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A system used by hotels to store information about their guests to improve customer care, communications, sales, and more. See the list of CRM integrations with the HiJiffy conversational AI.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Short for “Customer satisfaction,” the CSAT score is an important metric that measures how satisfied guests are with hotel services. Common ways to measure CSAT are simple direct questions asking guests to rate their overall satisfaction on a scale of 1-5 or using symbols of frowning, neutral and smiley faces. In the HiJiffy Console, you can monitor the CSAT score to see how satisfied guests are with the AI-powered conversations they had.
D
Decision Tree
In the context of guest communications, a decision tree is something that guests can encounter in a chat with conversational AI. They can be presented with a tree-like pattern of decisions and corresponding outcomes. The decision tree in the chat involves decision points, actions, and specific choices from a decision point. Instead of following the decision tree, guests can choose to ask open-ended questions.
Direct Booking
Direct bookings are those made on a hotel website, as opposed to reservations made through OTAs, travel agencies and other third-party networks.
Dynamic Pricing
In the hospitality context, dynamic pricing is the practice of adjusting room rates based on market demand.
E
Early Bird
A term used to describe promotions and discounts related to advance bookings within a specific range of dates.
F
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) is a group of the most popular questions and answers for a specific context. As an example, they can be regarding the check-in and check-out times, available parking or recommendations for nearby tourist attractions. Conversational AI solutions can be implemented to provide automatic answers to guests and in turn, relieve reception teams from the repetitive workload.
Fenced Rates
Rates available to guests if they accept specific conditions. Hotels often offer a series of rate options that are determined by accepting “fences,” for example non-refundable, partially refundable, or available only for advance bookings.
Financing Gateway
A payment system (or payment processing gateway) enabling seamless, fast and secure transactions for all payments taken by a hotel. See the list of Financing Gateways integrations with the HiJiffy solutions.
Flow
In the context of AI-driven conversations, a flow is a process guiding guests through sequential steps allowing for collecting information in a structured manner.
G
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
A legal framework set by the European Union (EU) for collecting and processing the personal data of individuals in the EU. Learn about GDPR here.
Global Distribution System (GDS)
A reservation system offering a platform where various services can be purchased form different providers in a comprehensive manner. Travel agents use GDS to book flights, car rentals, hotel reservations and other services for their customers. OTAs can also use data from GDS to feed into their platforms.
Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room (GOPPAR)
Term used in revenue management to describe value of a difference between room revenue and expenses, divided by the number of rooms available.
Guest Journey
The guest journey can be described as mapping out various touchpoints between guests and hotels. The top-level stages of the guest journey are pre-stay, in-stay, and post-stay. More detailed stages include asking FAQs before the booking, the booking process itself, pre-stay upselling and room upgrade campaigns, check-in, in-stay requests, guest review and retention campaigns. See an example of a hotel guest journey.
Guest Communications Hub
A comprehensive collection of communication solutions driven by HiJiffy’s conversational AI, Aplysia OS, empowering hotels to increase revenue and boost guest satisfaction.
H
Hospitality / Hotel Chatbot
A hotel chatbot can be described as conversational software specially designed for the hospitality industry. It simulates a conversation with a human agent, empowering hotels to offer instantaneous and personalised customer service. Thanks to automation, especially if powered by conversational AI which removes the necessity for the involvement of a human agent (unless requested), it alleviates hotel staff, such as reception and reservation teams, from repetitive tasks. Advanced hospitality chatbots can integrate with different communication platforms and social media channels.
Hotel Marketing
An essential strategy for attracting travellers and optimising the success of a hotel. Access a free guide to hotel marketing on our blog.
I
Inbox
In the context of HiJiffy, users can access the omnichannel inbox centralising, automating and measuring customer care in a single powerful platform – the Console.
Integrations
An integration of hotel systems is a process of linking together different systems so they can interact with each other allowing for a seamless and streamlined flow of information. For example, HiJiffy’s Guest Communications Hub integrates with Booking Engines, Property Management Systems, Maintenance Management Systems, CRMs, Payment Gateways, Service Automation Tools, Marketing and more.
J
K
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
An objectively quantifiable metric used to measure and evaluate the level of success in meeting objectives. It can range depending on specific areas of hotel management, but it is likely to include metrics such as RevPAR, ADR, Occupancy Rate and more.
L
Last Room Value (LRV)
The maximum revenue that a hotel can make from selling the last available room. It is calculated by RM teams using dynamic pricing. Rates for the last available room tend to be above the average level to make the most of the high demand on the market.
M
Machine Learning
Machine learning can be defined as AI technology capable of self-learning from data it processes and applying the learnings without intervention from a human. Read about the self-learning capacity of our conversational AI.
Maintenance Management System (MMS)
This computerised management software allows hoteliers to control all maintenance tasks, from keeping a log of reported issues, to scheduling maintenance and regular checks and replacements. See the list of Maintenance Management System integrations with the HiJiffy solutions.
Metasearch
A metasearch engine is a system that aggregates information from different search engines to offer the most complete answers to a search query.
N
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
This subcategory of AI deals with helping machines to understand and process human language. Read about how self-learning NLP works in practice.
O
Occupancy Rate
A metric used in hospitality that can be calculated by dividing the number of rooms occupied by the number of those available and presented as percentages.
Online Travel Agency (OTA)
Third-party online platforms that allow customers to book accommodation and/or other travel services. OTAs examples are Expedia, Booking.com, or Airbnb.
P
Payment Gateways
A payment system (or payment processing gateway) enabling seamless, fast and secure transactions for all payments taken by a hotel. See the list of Payment Gateways integrations with the HiJiffy solutions.
Q
R
Reputation Management System
A platform for managing guest reviews for a hotel.
Revenue Generated Index (RGI)
A metric measuring revenue share in the market, by comparing a hotel’s RevPAR to the average in the market.
Revenue Management (RM)
In the context of hospitality, this discipline focuses on optimising room availability and rates to maximise revenue. It aims to match the right product with the right target customer base through the most effective channels, time and price.
Revenue Management System (RMS)
A business platform used to control and carry out revenue management tasks. It combines hotel data with market data to provide hoteliers with the most useful information to make decisions related to revenue management.
Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR)
A metric in hospitality that can be calculated by dividing the average daily room revenue (ADR) by the number of rooms available at the hotel.
S
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
This digital marketing technique aims to get website pages to rank as high as possible in search engine results such as Google, Bing or Yahoo! The end objective is to increase organic traffic to the website and boost brand awareness.
Self-learning AI / NLP
A technology that can learn new expressions and topics and apply them to previously presented issues. Read our article exploring how AI self-learning works.
Sentient Chatbots
A conversational AI technology or a machine driven by such technology capable of making judgments of its own rather than following a set of instructions.
Sentiment Analysis
This powerful AI technique analyses the language and content of each conversation to determine whether it has a positive, neutral or negative emotion behind it. Read more about the capacities of our AI.
Service Automation Tools
Hotel service automation tools allow hoteliers to automate many of their services in order to make them more efficient and reduce operational costs. See the list of Service Automation integrations with the HiJiffy solutions.
Software as Service (SaaS)
A way of delivering applications online to its users. Instead of a software package to be installed and maintained, it is accessible online where it is available in its most up-to-date version. Usually, SaaS is available via subscription.
Syntax & Semantic Analysis
Capability to address a variety of human language challenges, from the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence, to understanding the meaning and interpretation of words. Read more about the capacities of our AI.
T
Total Revenue per Available Room (TRevPAR)
A KPI used in hospitality to indicate the total revenue that the room can generate, including services such as hotel restaurants and bars (unlike RevPAR which is limited to the room rate only).
U
Upselling
Upselling is a sales technique encouraging guests to spend more money on purchasing upgrades and premium versions of what they already booked. Examples include room upgrades, hotel spa treatments, special breakfasts, or tickets for local attractions.
V
Virtual Concierge
Also known as a digital concierge, this guest-facing technology powered by AI offers assistance to hotel guests from the moment they book their stay. Conversational AI can automatically answer FAQs, such as breakfast time or directions for a car park, book additional services, and more. Learn about HiJiffy’s Virtual Concierge here.
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