Booking.com to open innovation center in Tel Aviv

Booking.com, a search engine for lodging reservations and one of the world’s largest e-commerce websites, plans to open a research center in Tel Aviv to scout for new artificial intelligence technologies that will improve its product offering, the Dutch company’s chief executive officer said in a LinkedIn post.

“From our earliest days, Booking.com has been deploying technology to help strip the friction out of travel. Today we can help you find a remote property anywhere in the world – from a luxury hotel to beach home or city apartment – and book it instantly with a few clicks on your mobile phone,” wrote Gillian Tans, the chief executive officer at Booking.com in an October 18  LinkedIn post. “But friction still exists in travel and we are on a quest to go even further to make the entire experience – from planning to staying and beyond — even easier with technology.”

Emerging technologies “are capable of fundamentally impacting what technology can do for travel,” Tans wrote. “Things like chatbots, machine learning tools, natural language processing, or sentiment analysis are applications of Artificial Intelligence that may one day profoundly change how we think about and transact in travel and local experiences. It is still in the very early days and there is a lot of work to do, but we want to be at the forefront of these technologies, which is why we are opening a new innovation center in one of the most tech-forward markets in the world: Tel Aviv.”

The company has chosen Tel Aviv because it has been rated by more than 980,000 internet users as the “world’s second-most innovative city,” according to a Wall Street Journal Poll, Tans wrote, and the Mediterranean city is becoming “increasingly recognized in the tech industry” as the “home to some of the best talent and innovation when it comes to artificial intelligence applications.”

“An innovation lab in the heart of the ‘start-up nation’ will enable Booking.com to learn more about and leverage new technologies, as well as test new capabilities and take our digital marketing efforts and data-based model to the next level — all of which will ultimately create the best experience for our customers. As we continue to grow and innovate in this talented tech hub, we look forward to what else we can gain and contribute to our customer base.”

Multinationals from Google to Apple, Deutsche Telecom to Bosch have all set up research and development centers in Israel, with 366 R&D centers run by multinational corporations locally, compared with about 250 such centers four years ago, data compiled by IVC Research Center in Tel Aviv shows. Earlier this month, Amazon said it is seeking to hire scientists and engineers for its research and development centers in Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Tans did not disclose additional details or the timeline for the center. The media center did not immediately respond to an email requesting additional information.