travel product - experience journey

Travel Product

May, 2012

Initial product concept document

Part - I

Contents

/Overview /Understanding users & scenarios

/ Starting point / First look / Retracing the path

/Building the experience ecosystem / Identifying user needs / Principle of our approach /Mapping the platform to the journey /What is the proposition /Design your travel experience /Creating the experience ecosystem

Note

The solution mix is loosely based on the target market of UK

Growth of Social media and mobile devices have changed the way we live, dine and communicate with each other. Young people are at the fore front of these change equipped with smart phones, connected with opinioned people and fully aware of their needs. All of these are changing the face of travel industry like never before. With GPRS and wi-fi connectivity travelers expect contextual and relevant information along every step of their journey. Young travelers now expect information that is both location contextual and relevant to their timely needs.

Every key purchase is heavily researched, considered, reviewed and bounced off for opinions. Every memory is shared and celebrated. They may not appear to be sure of where they want to go but they are very sure about how they want to feel. They are more inclined to engage with the local culture and activities on offer that the price. And above all perception about quality of services are influenced more by the intangibles that the tangibles and they are willing to pay more given the right mix of rational and emotional reasons. Let take the walk.

Overview

Understanding users & scenarios

Understand who are these young travellers? What are their motivations? What needs they have during the course of their journey

Starting Point

Peer review

Leisure Traveler

Potential Employee

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First let’s look at the target demographic…

• More than 70% of young traveller aged between 18-34 access travel information on their mobile devices when travelling

• More than 40% of the users rely on friends / relative recommendations during the process of making travel purchases

• On average, the users who use search and purchase on average searched 55 times

• Nearly half of purchasers bought two or more travel products

• 67% of those that booked accommodation visited Map sites beforehand

• The young audience eagerly want information related to local etiquette and customs and it ranked as top three type of content

Search Udaipur

Age 28

Occupation

Organization

Manager – sales

Standard Chartered

the journey starts here

>>

At home, planning for her next vacation.

Come across ‘Liked’ article by Vir Sanghvi

>>

“He looks like an connoisseur on Indian Culture”

Started gathering clues and nuances of Indian culture

>>

Retracing the path

“If only I could collate all these in one place”

Does it make life easier and is it fulfilling. A close look at the possible opportunities

>>

the user who use search and purchase on average searched 55 times – lack of content

Looks for deals and book tickets & hotel

Want to start aggregating • to do list • Places to visit • bookmark resource • look for local event • Local language

/etiquette

>> Keep posting random photos & thoughts

Put together visual stories and post online

Building the experience ecosystem

Identify the user needs

logistics

local

social

offers

event

hotspots

culture

travel

stay

local services

emotional connect

visual story

feedback

Evolve an ecosystem of experience around the unanswered need of the user

• Identify the motivation and provide guidance to plan and build enthusiasm

around the travel experience • Keep updating with local information, events, offers and customs; building

context to location and time of the day • Provide tool to connect to circle of friends, fellow traveler and connect with

people having experience and interest in chosen location and culture • Detail out the digital experience for the brand, focus on the aspect of experience

that will differentiate it.

Principles of our approach

Locate the trigger

Identify the motivation

Curate content cluster around interest areas & locations to guide decision making

Provide tools to plan, document and share

Travel Begins Travel Ends

Make available crowd sourced views, experiences, reviews on location

Design a platform that is an aggregate of services and content that deliver value across the pre-stay, stay and post stay phase. Evolve an ecosystem of experience around the existing booking engine.

Pre-Travel Travel Post-Travel

Mapping the platform to the journey

What is the proposition >>

travelmate

Make planning easy a seamless experience Deliver the experience by building connection and context

Travelmate as a platform will have a ubiquitous presence across devices and respond to the mobility and contextual need of travelers. Travelmate will be a tool for user to design the travel experience they are looking for, refine it with collective experience, invite people to join and finally share the actual travel experience. From the possible list of content channel, services and tools users can configure to a specific number that can be availed on the mobile interface. It will broadcast periodic content capsules that would be contextual to location, phase of travel and time of day.

Design your travel Experience

Travel

Food Cultural events

Food

Create your travel experience User create the travel experience he wants - selecting either the mood or places / dates / mode of travel– and use available graphics, photos, content & videos. It like the story he / she want to live during his travel.

Refine it with collective experience User then share his travel story with the larger community, who can come and add, comment and suggest changes to the itinerary or make multiple tours guides

Look for companions User can look for people with similar interest, intersecting travel plan or 0ther companions – and extend invites to them to become co traveler either for the entire duration or for sessions. User can plan such session on map and share the same with other companions. During the course of travel each companion can track each other on the map, communicate, share and create a visual gallery of his experience.

Share the world you experienced User can start sharing the experiences and stories that he was part of or helped create.. Other users can draw from this world to design better travel experiences

offers 50%

Local offers

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Curated content Need mapping Context mapping Aggregation of user content Curators Cultural gurus Tools Local content (language / etiquette)

Po

st T

rave

l Tr

ave

l P

re-T

rave

l

Provide the content and tools contextual to users’ need that make the travel research, planning and documenting memories a seamless experience.

On the move

Local cultural events Local culture etiquette Local offers Airline updates User content – photo, opinions, videos Twitter – local trends Weather

User can configure a limited number of channels from the given channels – and will start receiving content updates on the mobile just from the time travel is planned. The mobile interface would provide • Guided map for local travel, walks, landmarks and other cultural hotspot • Locate people with similar interest in the near vicinity • Locate your circle of friends in the near vicinity & send them alerts • Look up local offers and purchase the same through your mobile wallet

Fresh

Quick Thoughts The platform let user identify what he / she looking for in the holiday and

then connect him / her with relevant content, people and tools to help shape up the mood

User can setup the account only through laptops, iPad and desktops. Account setup requires the users to pull in the FB and twitter ‘following’ friends.

Users can set dates for the travel mood, which starts much before the actual travel dates and may extend to well beyond when the travel ends

User can fill in travel plan – airline, hotel booking, car rental and other itinerary

Look up people who are traveling same destination The mobile application will configure itself in the destination time zone,

reporting on weather, local news trends and regular content capsules on language, etiquette, weather, offers and cultural events in and around the location.

It will use crowd intelligence to put forward local knowledge, events or contextual activities that users can possibly indulge in

Each cultural cluster can have a mentor or a guru, who can help users organize the travel to maximize cultural experience

User can start aggregating and tagging content and images that are contextual to his place of interest.

How do you want to feel after your travel?

Good

Enriched

Make it People Centric Take a user-centered design approach, look beyond the project, beyond the interaction, beyond the screen. The attempt would be to try and understand the mind-set of the users, when they interacts with our solution, how he got there and what the motivation is.

Creating the ‘Experience’ ecosystem

Simplify Make the solution users friendly and natural. Make accomplishment of each task and fulfillment of each need a journey with minimal glitches and effortless. Minimize surprises and keep the user informed at every stage of the journey.

Be the wireless web User are no longer sitting on their desktop, they are everywhere else. Let’s embrace the ‘fragmented’ web and drive brand experiences to where the customers are.

Make the experience interactive & intuitive The experience should be rooted in business objectives, to make interaction an engagement with the brand. Let’s have a clear strategy to focus on creating interactions that fulfil the brand promise rather than invest in technology that un-usable.

Part - II

Contents

/Persona /Journey /Scenario-I /Scenario-II

Context Michael been using the current booking engine for last two years and though generally satisfied; he finds

its limiting.

Now powered by his smart phone, he is looking to plan for his next big vacation in India after a gap of two

years. And he is looking for a platform that can help his plan, create, share and stay connected during his

long awaited holiday and wonders, “is there a single platform which can stays with me during the entire

journey; guiding and creating meaningful connection to make this holiday an experience to remember”.

He is willing to devote time to search and plan and is committed to make sure he finds the right

relationship.

The Role of the Internet & mobile Michael takes his research directly to the Web regardless of if he is in office, at home or on the move in

the market. He’s constantly using Google and Facebook to quickly reference topics that come up in

conversations with his peers. He is aware of the big players, such as Expedia and Lonely Planet. However,

he doesn’t really know if any of them offers completely what he is looking for. But he has got one word-

of-mouth suggestion, Travelmate. He turns to the web and starts looking for sites and apps and visit

Travelmate.

Challenges and Pain Points How travel sites or even the new travel apps present themselves online isn’t always consistent with who

they really are. He has to visit multiple sites for researching, planning, booking and sharing. He also gets

lost on sites that are cluttered with information but cannot help plan the journey. He wants to start with a

platform that understands his unique needs and will stay with him though out the entire journey.

The Bottom Line • He wants something that can help him leverage crowd intelligence for planning. • He wants to go along with a platform that helps him create, connect, share his travel story;

something that he can trust and turn to during the course of his journey.

Perceptions • “This holiday should be different as the world is now more connected and mobile.” • “I need a digital companion that can understand my travel needs and helps me with suggestion and

create connections.”

Michael Phelps Age: 32 years

Web savvy, UK based business process manager

Travel goals: Looking to take a vacation after two years that can let him experience a new culture.

Have saved enough to plan comfortably

Internet usage: Heavy, use his iPad and mobile to researches everything before making a first move

Journey – Travelmate

Does initial research; looking to see what the experience could be; burrowing and learning from other experiences

Book mark content, places, people and experiences. Finally putting in place the travel experience/s that he want to relive or create.

Shares his travel journey and story with his circle of friends, influencers and mentors. Invite opinions and suggestion to fine tune the plan and experiences before finalizing the itinerary.

Finalize the travel plan, experience and people with whom he want to undertake the journey

Receive Update on local culture weather, offers , events, culture

Connect with people with similar interest, with co-travelers and with stories that are being told

Look up people, place, activity and food of interest and in near vicinity. Look for guidance to move around (maps) and to mingle (local customs, etiquette and language)

Share opinion on stories being told. Share snippets of his own experiences

Compile his travel story and experiences

PRE-TRAVEL: Evaluate & Plan the travel ‘Exp’ TRAVEL – Live THE story and Engage POST-Travel: Share Exp

Trigger

Shares experience with colleagues/ friends

Turns to the Web to research travel experiences driven by a trigger and driven by motivations

Research Compare & Choose

Share & Seek

Finalize Travel Exp

Receive Update

Connect Look Share Compile Share & Invite

Scenario I Scenario II

Scenario Michael has decided to plan his next vacation with TravelMate. He has set up his account and it is the second time he has logged in the web interface of the TravelMate. He is enjoying the discoveries and is in the process of setting up his travel plans.

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A User is greeted in the local language of the location he has select for his travel plan

B The sleek banner would contain a thematic image in an attempt to capture the essence of the culture

C ‘Popular now’ is a live feed of the different stories, channels and people that user has selected to follow.

D TravelMate suggestions based on some activity metrics and peer recognition.

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memories

stories

Scenario Michael has started living his travelled, he has so meticulously planned. He reached last night, and is up early and looking to plan the day. He reached out to his iPhone, and starts TravelMate to explore what Udaipur has to offer. He got interested in the dance event scheduled for the coming evening.

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