Software built
School teams up with Orlando firm to gauge visitors’ enjoyment
by Orlando-based Datanautix will analyze online comments for the area’s theme parks, restaurants, hotels and other attractions as the tourism industry tries to gauge how visitors feel about their experiences here.
The tourism industry in Central Florida has a new way to gauge how visitors feel about the city and their experiences here — artificial intelligence.
New software built by the Orlando-based Datanautix will analyze online comments and reviews for the area’s theme parks, restaurants, hotels and other attractions.
It’s part of a new contract between the firm and the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
The goal is a big-picture look at how the region’s hospitality industry has been doing.
“It is our responsibility to train and develop the hospitality leaders of tomorrow while also helping the industry evolve and change,” said Abraham Pizam, college dean, in a release. “Review analysis that will impact the future of the guest experience is critical in that equation.”
Rosen College has been granted permission to use Datanautix software for free, Rosen College professor Fevzi Okumus said, under a “gentleman’s agreement” between the two sides.
The company and the college have worked together in the past and, they say, the agreement is a product of building that relationship.
A formal agreement, however, may happen later.
Using artificial intelligencebased technology, Datanautix’s Ana platform looks at social media and other web-based comments in near real time to give businesses a way to quickly analyze high volumes of data.
In 2015, Orlando was the most-visited city in the U.S. with more than 66 million visitors.
The company will work with Rosen College professors Okumus and Ahment Ozturk, along with Florida Atlantic University’s Anil Bilgihan, to help the platform learn about hospitality.
“We will be able to provide deeper and more actionable insights to the hospitality industry,” Datanautix founder and president Sanjay Patel said in the release.
It’s yet another in a series of jobs for Datanautix, a 10-year old company that employs 10 in Orlando and began as a consulting firm but it shifted into tech about two years ago.
Late last year, Datanautix announced a partnership with Orlando International Airport to provide the facility with realtime analysis of online comments about the airport.
“We want to help the industry understand how to handle the explosion in word-of-mouth marketing and the impact of what is shared in the public domain on consumer decision making,” Okumus said. “The ability to quickly understand and respond to consumer opinions can provide a significant strategic and competitive advantage to businesses.”