Navan, a business travel and expense platform, unveiled its new hotel catalog infrastructure designed to solve the industry’s most persistent lodging challenge: inconsistent room and rate information. 

Conflicting hotel room data, according to an announcement, is a challenge every traveler has become familiar with. Without a way to reconcile different booking sources, said the announcement, a simple shopping experience can quickly turn into a lengthy guessing game. Travelers, said the announcement, can be left wondering how one room differs from another, making it easy to book a “Deluxe King” only to find the room looks nothing like the photos or description upon arrival.

Navan’s inventory contains 2.6 million properties, including direct connections to hotel brands like Wyndham, Travelodge UK and Premier Inn; GDS content from Sabre and Amadeus; and OTA listings from Expedia, Booking.com and MakeMyTrip. Existing solutions to consolidate hotel room data, said the announcement, struggled to handle the complexity inherent in so many sources. Navan, according to the announcement, rebuilt its hotel engine in-house from the ground up, so that the room travelers see online is what they find when they walk into the hotel.

Dane Molter, senior vice president of Travel Marketplace at Navan, said, “Travelers shouldn’t have to play detective to figure out if two different room listings are actually the same.”  By using large language models as a universal translator, he said, “we’ve eliminated the duplicate listings that clutter search results and we’ve improved how rates get matched to rooms.” Today, said Molter, “travelers using Navan only see rooms that actually exist, with more rate options, and more detailed information and photography.”

Navan has deployed two new pieces of technology: its unified room catalog that organizes and cleans up information for every hotel on the platform; and its room intelligence mapper, an AI-powered tool that acts as a universal translator to turn multiple messy descriptions into one clear, verified listing.

Together, said the announcement, the two ensure that the complexity of the back end never reaches the traveler’s screen. By making all rate options, from loyalty-point-eligible refundable rates to last-minute deals, available for self-service on a single platform, the announcement said, “Navan aims to offer travelers a best-in-class experience in business travel.”