Insights from Riversoft CEO, Alex Kuo

In the fiercely competitive world of the post-pandemic travel industry, travel suppliers are looking to provide a leaner, more finely targeted service for their customers. Using state-of-the-art technology, DART enables suppliers to offer a one-stop shop for all their clients’ travel needs. Riversoft CEO Alex Kuo fills in the details.

Hello, Alex. Glad to have you with us again today. We have previously discussed the DART project. Can you tell us more about it? What does the acronym “DART” mean?

DART means “Dynamic Attention Recommendation Technology” for travel.

Since travellers’ needs change rapidly, Riversoft uses its in-house-developed Dynamic Attention technology to comprehend their needs, match them with the real-time inventory, and recommend travel products via the website, instant message channels, and emails.

Why did Riversoft develop this unique recommendation engine? What challenges facing the travel industry are you trying to overcome through DART?

After the epidemic, there are several pain points in the tourism industry.

  1. The labour shortage is now a headache for the industry.
  2. Travel suppliers have limited digitisation and experience difficulty providing travel products with the rapidly rebounding travel market demand.
  3. Google says it intends to phase out third-party cookies in 2023. In the future, it will be hard to know the tendencies and profiles of individual travellers. It will also mean that the travel industry pays higher advertising costs to find the right customers.
  4. Even online travel agencies do not allow travellers to purchase everything they need for travel in one stop.

Because of these difficulties, Riversoft developed its DART product to solve these pain points.

DART means “Dynamic Attention Recommendation Technology” for travel.

Tourism is a very fast-paced industry with many interconnecting variables in play. How does DART make accurate recommendations in a cookie-less environment?

First, we use the User Demand Profiling Engine to analyse the conversations of travellers in the chatbot and the behaviour on the website.

Second, we embed the concept of dynamic attention in the Travel Ontology Inference Engine, which trains customer behaviour data and needs via deep-learning models.

We can match the results to the travel products and services accordingly.

Lastly, we use Workflow Engine to present customised recommendation results to users and provide the most appropriate presentation of the results according to the user interface.

 

tourist using a mobile phone

What are the major innovations behind the DART project? What is its critical success factor?

Riversoft has pioneered combining NLP technology, millions of items of real-time travel inventory, high-speed dynamic package technology, and CaaS (conversation as a service) in DART.

We think the key factors are listed below:

  1. Riversoft builds its own ontology to develop its NLP kernel and make progress in the medical and CaaS fields.
  2. Our team has more than ten years of domain knowledge in the travel industry.
  3. We have a solid cloud-based inventory with a fast caching speed of auto-provision capability.
Riversoft has pioneered combining NLP technology, millions of items of real-time travel inventory, high-speed dynamic package technology, and CaaS (conversation as a service) in DART.

How can DART optimise the current booking experience for travellers? How can it increase the time visitors spend on the travel booking website?

To TAs and OTAs, embedding DART can significantly improve efficiency, upgrade their website function, and enhance the application of instant messaging channels. DART provides accurate business insight reports to TAs and OTAs and assists in finding market opportunities. More importantly, DART can assist TAs and OTAs in selling more products and increasing the lifetime value of each customer.

At the same time, travellers can chat with our AI bot, so DART can analyse the conversation and user behaviour on the website and provide travellers with precise recommendations to accelerate the process of finding everything they need and purchasing it all in one stop.

Data Processing Flowchart
Data processing flowchart of the online service environment (Image source: Riversoft Inc.)

Related articles: 

Go to top

Executive Profile

Alex Kuo

Alex Kuo is the Chairman of Riversoft, a Taiwanese software company focusing on developing innovative solutions and management systems for the travel and tourism industry. Kuo has an MBA from George Washington University and is pursuing an EDBA from Université de Liège. He had over 20 years of career in the Acer group holding senior positions. Before moving to Canada, he worked in two publicly-listed tech-based companies in China for six years. Kuo has also been a venture angel supporting the growth of more than ten companies globally.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here