In order to “Save the World,” as his new show promises he’s out to do, science and TV personality Bill Nye will probably have to do a good deal of traveling around it. So, it makes sense that he’d be chosen as a pitchman for a series of new videos from Expedia in which he explains how the company uses technology to simplify travel booking.
Sporting his signature bow tie, the famed Science Guy dives deep into Bellevue, Wash.-based Expedia’s complex BFS — or Best Fare Search algorithm.
“Even though it seems like magic, BFS uses data science,” Nye says in one video. He says that BFS can analyze 19 quadrillion itineraries when a user plans a round trip. Nye elaborates on just how big a number that is by comparing it to a number of things, including how “it’s 109,000 times more than all the people who have ever lived.”
In another 2-minute spot, Nye talks about how if BFS is one of Expedia’s “biggest rock stars,” then Travelgraph is the “full-service agency that sets up the entire Expecia suite for success.”
Travelgraph is able to recommend personalized travel options by analyzing patterns based on searches, bookings and reviews.
And finally, seated in a fake airplane cabin, Nye waxes on the importance of travel personalization, and how billions of rows of data are analyzed by Expedia’s tech in order to surface the most relevant options for each traveler.
