Thanks to the Internet, the world has gotten smaller, and selling experiences and destinations to travel to has gotten easier. The Ascott Limited takes it further by making it seamlessly convenient, and with 15 brands that cater to a wide range of price points, locations, and customer needs. It is present in 43 countries with over 940 properties, and Cubby the chatbot presents all of it, in a neat interface for digital nomads, business travellers, experience seekers and more, to query from and zoom into their selected room or residence.

During the pandemic a few years ago, at a time when many in the industry were impacted, The Ascott Limited’s Managing Director for Brand & Marketing, Ms Tan Bee Leng shared that they were actually more resilient due to their business model. In addition, the digitization initiatives they undertook years before lockdowns and restricted travel allowed them to stay agile.

“When we talk about digital transformation, it’s really not just from the front end and what the customer sees. It’s also about the backend, where we look at embracing cloud technology, and the whole infrastructure of the business, to integrate across systems such as inventory management, CRM, and payment systems. There is a lot in the back end that we need to consider.”

Ascott had just launched their loyalty program, Ascott Star Rewards, in the middle of 2019, right as the global pandemic effectively shut down the entire hospitality industry. The group had to quickly pivot customer engagement through digital means. The priority then was to retain customers’ loyalty, even without customers being able to experience the product itself.

Coming out of the pandemic and with generative AI exploding onto the scene, Bee Leng found that the company can make it easier and more seamless for their customers.

“So, when it comes to personalization, in the ‘olden days’ there was a lot of manual work – we needed to do surveys, sit down with our guests and talk to them… with technology, we are really quite excited about how we can make that entire process a lot swifter and seamless, and a lot more comfortable for our guests, while we understand their needs, and wishes a lot better.”

“We introduced Cubby because we know that some of these (travel) decisions can be complex. So we wanted to have what we call an easy interface, where Cubby can talk to you, and ask you what you need, what you want to do, and provide the offerings based on your preferences.”

As Bee Leng mentioned, Cubby is a relatively new entrant in Ascott Limited’s customer-facing solutions, and it will continue to learn as it interacts with more customers. “We wanted to project an image that (Cubby)is continuously learning, like a young cub, and we wanted to embrace our customers in this journey of learning.”

Bee Leng highlighted that while the group does not expect Cubby to be a perfectly intelligent machine from the get-go, bringing customers along this journey of learning about the tech and teaching its model to improve, becomes a co-curation journey with all of Ascott’s customers.