Peek, Hipmunk, and happiness

A modest proposal for a truly holistic travel experience 

This is part five of a series of posts about Peek, an online activities booking marketplace. Read parts one, two, three, and four.

The modern consumer relies heavily on the internet for most buying decisions these days, and travel is no exception — online travel sales have grown to $160 billion a year and show no signs of stopping. Combine that with the fact that 70% of leisure travelers seek destinations with varied activities specific to their interests, and it’s no wonder Peek has attracted investment from the likes of Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.

For most of us, booking leisurely travel online is seldom leisurely. The virtual scavenger hunt is usually threefold:

1. Discovery phase — preliminary google of destinations/flights/accommodations/transportation/activities
2. Qualification phase- narrow down shortlist by poring through social media, reviews, articles, etc.
3. Confirmation phase- go to vendor’s website to book and pay

This convoluted process is annoying, outdated, and inefficient. If you’re looking for fun and interesting activities, Peek sorts through all the noise for you and wraps it all up in a simple interface to easily browse and book carefully curated activities directly through their system.

Peek’s beautiful interface could inspire wanderlust in the staunchest homebody, but leaves a lot to be desired.

But Peek only solves one aspect of the problem. Having fun things to do in your destination won’t do you any good until you actually get there— what about flights and accommodations? Where’s our Amazon for travel?

Today’s user’s gravitate towards metasearch and aggregators to get a holistic view of their options. A Google research study shows that over 60% of leisure travelers turn to the internet for inspiration, and travelers across segments shop around to secure the best value before booking.

Google+ Advertiser Insights Travel Habits Study

Sites like Gogobot allows users to book both accommodations and activities on it’s site. Peek seems to see the value in helping their customers with logistics by providing links to airports, taxis, public transportation, and shared-car services as well as including transportation on some of their all-inclusive premium packages. But if they want to gain an edge on the competitive arena of travel technology, Peek should expedite the entire fragmented travel booking process by facilitating flight and accommodations to their destinations with a like-minded company that already provides those services — enter, Hipmunk.

Peek could provide a lot more value to it’s customers by saving them the headache of having to book flight and hotels separately. Hotel bookings make particularly good sense since they can extend to customers that would be traveling by ground transportation, not to mention attractive revenue margins of 23%, making it by far the most profitable division compared to airlines (3%) and car rentals & cruises (9%).

Simulation of how the easily Hipmunk’s flight and hotel search could live on Peek’s pages

Cross-integration would provide a seamless solution for Peek users needing to book flight and accommodations and save Hipmunk users from having to schlep around the web to book activities when they reach their destinations.

Hipmunk’s City Guides was apparently an attempt to give tourists the inside scoop on what to do in a city and navigate them to a neighborhood that would suit their tastes without having to toggle back and forth between tabs. Currently, they offer little more than uninspired Things to Do and See sections which literally consist of glorified Wikipedia links to a lackluster laundry list of your typical tourist activities.

Hipmunk smartly partners with Eatr to outsource it’s restaurant recommendations, both integrating listings on certain Hipmunk City Guide pages and linking to their site for further information — why not partner with Peek in a similar fashion to provide streamlined booking and a friendlier user interface?

Simulation of seamless Peek integration on Hipmunk

Hipmunk would benefit from Peek’s irresistible imagery and Peek would benefit from Hipmunk’s metasearch mastery.

The “Peekmunk partnership” would allow both parties to leverage each other’s strengths and users in a way that would increase conversion rates and customer satisfaction. And the world would finally have an all-inclusive online travel booking experience that leaves us with nothing more to worry about than fitting into our swimsuits on the next easily-booked adventure.

This post is not associated with either Peek or Hipmunk.