Booking.

com Data Science Business Case - Likelihood to sell out soon

Booking.com wants to use all the power of data/algorithms to help its customers to find what
they are searching for, and to have a good overall booking experience.

One of the ways we could help our users is by indicating to them whether we expect a specific
hotel to sell out soon (on their searched dates), and - if this is the case - estimate when that
would happen. In the image below you can see how this model would be implemented on the
Booking.com website;

We’d like you to reflect on a model to solve what was previously described, and to prepare a 5-
to-10 minute presentation that will answer the following questions:

1. Do you think this issue is important and why?

2. Assuming that you have all the data/information you could think of at hand: What data
would you decide to use for your model?
3. How would you need this data to be stored for your model/algorithm to run smoothly?
4. What algorithm(s) would you use to solve this problem? Provide as many details about it
(them) as possible, including pseudo-code if you think it’s pertinent.
5. How long would it take you to build this model?
6. Do you think the development of this model should be split into stages? If so, what would
 these stages be?
7. What are the main challenges you think you will face when building/implementing this
model?

This presentation will be given at the beginning of your interview at Booking.com to your 2
interviewers. You may use whichever tools you want to complement it, such as a Power Point
presentation or PDF document.

If you have any additional questions don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’re looking forward to
hearing your ideas!