Broca Networks and Active Hotels Launch Hotel Booking Service

CAMBRIDGE, UK - Broca Networks Limited, a Cambridge-based speech application provider and Active Hotels, a provider of online reservations to the European hotel industry, have partnered to create a speech-activated hotel booking service, enabling telephone callers to book hotel accommodation throughout Europe over the Internet. The Service The service works by the caller interacting with a computer rather than a live agent. The caller is navigated through a menu of options from which they can select and make requests for information using their voice. This system brings the benefits of real-time online booking services to those without easy access to a PC or for those who are on the move. Guests can request information and book hotel accommodation throughout Europe whenever they want from wherever they want. Brian Corbett, CEO of Broca Networks says, "Speech recognition technology today can provide immediate benefits at low cost to our customers and their users. Transactions over the Internet are general practice today. Broca Networks' applications further this by linking the Internet to the phone using speech recognition technology, therefore offering an additional channel to market for online companies." Adrian Critchlow, Active Hotels' business development director comments, "Active Hotels is delighted with the results of the speech-driven hotel booking service. This technology, as well as being fun to use, is very practical if you're on the move. It has only recently gone live and is already taking real-time bookings for our 3,000 hotels across Europe." The Technology Active Hotels' real-time online booking service links via XML to Broca's speech recognition and 'text-to-speech' technologies. Hours customer of phone calls are answered by Broca Networks' voice interface platform where the caller's speech is converted into text, which is then used to search for available accommodation. A combination of pre-recorded prompts and text-to-speech technology is used to confirm the information to the caller. The service uses VoiceXML.