Rob Francis (L), CTO of Booking.com, speaks in an interview during the 2023 Collision Conference in Toronto, Canada, on June 27, 2023. Booking.com, one of the world's leading digital travel platforms, announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) trip planner at the Collision conference in Toronto on Tuesday, emphasizing that China is a "hotbed for technology" and that it may step up its expansion in that market in the future. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)

TORONTO, Canada, June 27 -- Booking.com, one of the world's leading digital travel platforms, announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) trip planner at the Collision conference in Toronto on Tuesday, emphasizing that China is a "hotbed for technology" and that it may step up its expansion in that market in the future.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, the platform's CTO Rob Francis said he expects AI to further improve the travel planning experience and recommend destination and accommodation options to millions of travelers around the world.

"We got to the point where we want to leverage the existing machine learning and AI capabilities in the booking platform. One of the things we do quite well is bring the right place to stay at the right time for the right person," he said during Collision, one of the world's biggest tech events, taking place in Toronto on June 26-29.

Founded in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com is part of Booking Holdings and has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the world's leading digital travel companies.

Booking.com is available in 43 languages and offers more than 28 million total reported accommodation listings, including over 6.6 million listings alone of homes, apartments and other places to stay.

Asked about the online travel agency's international expansion plans, Francis said: "We're starting in the U.S. for a growing percentage of customers and we're going to use that to learn and understand what customers like. Then we will gradually expand it over time, both in terms of regions and countries and what the experiences could be over time."

According to a report in January by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), a UN specialized agency, 2023 is expected to be a strong year for the travel sector even in the face of diverse challenges including the global economic slowdown and continued geopolitical uncertainty.

According to UNWTO data, more than 900 million tourists travelled internationally in 2022, double the number recorded in 2021 though still 63 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Based on UNWTO's forward-looking scenarios for 2023, international tourist arrivals could reach between 80 to 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels this year, depending on the extent of the economic slowdown, the ongoing recovery of travel in Asia and the Pacific and the conflict in Ukraine, among other factors.

CHINA ON THE MAP

Francis also said that while it's still premature to talk about expansion plans in China, it was just a question of time to tap more into that market too.

"It's just too early for us to say, but Booking.com is a global brand. We have customers all over the world. We want to bring great experiences to all our customers. It's early days right now and we have a lot to learn still."

Asked about his view on China as a global AI and innovation leader, Francis emphasized: "Obviously, China is a very strong hotbed of technology. We always see that good technology is not exclusive to any part of the world."

Collision, now in its fifth year in Toronto, has reached a new record by bringing together 36,378 attendees from 118 countries, the organizers wrote in a press release on Tuesday. 

Rob Francis, CTO of Booking.com, speaks in an interview during the 2023 Collision Conference in Toronto, Canada, on June 27, 2023. Booking.com, one of the world's leading digital travel platforms, announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) trip planner at the Collision conference in Toronto on Tuesday, emphasizing that China is a "hotbed for technology" and that it may step up its expansion in that market in the future. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)

Rob Francis, CTO of Booking.com, speaks in an interview during the 2023 Collision Conference in Toronto, Canada, on June 27, 2023. Booking.com, one of the world's leading digital travel platforms, announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) trip planner at the Collision conference in Toronto on Tuesday, emphasizing that China is a "hotbed for technology" and that it may step up its expansion in that market in the future.