Redesigning Travel experience -Dubai tourism website
The facts say that
In 2018, 1.66 crore(16.6 million) travellers visited Dubai.
By 2020, the Vision is of welcoming 2 crore(20 million) travellers to Dubai.
Dubai is ranked 4th city for the most travellers visited in 2019.
And at an average a traveller, in Dubai, spends $553(38k INR)per day, which is higher than any city in the world.
Wuff, too much high on stats? 😱
So, here, there is a big opportunity to design an experience or a website for these large audience or travellers, for better planning of their travel end to end, holistically.
But, there a many websites which does that. What can we do, is the integration and packed with some good to have features of end to end planning in one place, as a whole.
So the Design Brief is
To design a planning experience, for Dubai travellers(the first timers and the familiar travellers, too, basically, all🤗), through which, they can plan their travel end to end.
This is a small attempt from me of an enhanced solution, for the travellers who want to plan their travel to Dubai seamlessly. This solution can be integrated with the Dubai Tourism website.
Below, I will take you through the process of designing the solution, with a feature wise explanation and justification about it, which might be helpful for other designers who are working in this domain.
Find the Project here on Behance.
As a Designer
Let’s think out loud now 🙇🏻♂️
The solution is broken down into features and are explained below:
1. The starting point-From and To ⤏
From and to stay or visit duration is the first thing a traveller needs to decide before travelling to any place.
Why?
Events gets resulted for that duration and the system can help you find activities related to your stay duration, quick and simple. Without this, it would be misleading in scenarios where the user is finding Points of Interests(POIs), which later he finds out are not for the time of his/her stay.
2. Dubai in different seasons & different times of the day🌙
Different seasons and cities have a good relationship with the beauty and memories which travellers experience while the visit to any city. People can associate places with the climate. Like Switzerland is for coolness 🍨, Africa is for hot and happening 🌶, Cherrapunji(in India) for rain ☔️.
So the idea here, is to show videos/images/content related to seasons(sunny, cold, rainy, if at all snowy), day or night in Dubai, on the landing fold, sliding across the banner.
3. Talk to me in my language
You might say, a user can translate language from the Google chrome browser. But remember, I have mentioned before that, integration is the key. The user needs to have it there, stitched well in the solution and needs to access wherever & whenever relevant. This, would give a thoughtless experience for the user, without him/her navigating outside the experience or the website.
4. A friendly conversation 🗣
When you talk to your friend who has been to Dubai, you ask places of Interests, which he/she would like to mention. Like example ‘Where did you stay?, What places you visited, bro?, What are the food spots you explored?, What did you do there?, etc, etc , etc….And the conversation goes on as you have a dinner with your friend. Quite a good experience. Right?
Let the digital experience also speak to you in your tone of language. So the Search of POIs are according to four major categories :
- Where to stay?(Quick and top rated stays, hotels, homestays rent)
- Where to eat?(cuisines, local and global)
- What to do?(like activities, adventures, sports, travellers who like to be in action, on the go)
- What to see?(Sightseeing and nothing much to do, like a relaxed trip)
Note : Conversation UI is the way how your products converses with you in a more informal and humanised way. More you can read here about Conversation UI in detail.
Some good examples of Conversational UI are, Buddy Nutrition, Heek. (more will explain in my next blog on this subject)
5. Quick check and add to itinerary ➕
No bullshit of all detail and mundane reading pages.
A detail page which gives a clear estimate of time and budget. The budget has a currency convertor designed in it, so that users before travelling to that city, can check the estimated budget accordingly, by sitting in a different country or a location. And yes the user and check more info about that place.
Check quick facts about that POI, which are like a hook, to add that place to your itinerary. Factual data is good to convince users, and builds a trust factor in them. Content should be convincing and transparent to your users. Add the POIs to your itinerary, which can be edited later on, when you have added all your POIs to it.
According to the stay duration, and the estimated POI time, the itinerary won’t accept more if there is a time clash with your maximum POIs added. Intelligent, Right?
6. Check POIs according to your mood 🤟🏼
Check places according to your moods:
- Adventure
- Romantic
- Relax
- Solo
- Family
- Close to nature
- Infotainment
- Historical
- and more to add….(leave your moods in the comments below, if any)
7. Live like a local 🚲
Most travellers want to explore the local culture, to name some, local events, local festivals(if any) & local food available. Gives a more authenticity of visiting cities, as you want to take back some memories which are culturally different(that is one of the key things of travelling in the first place).
So let’s show the user those local flavoured places to explore for in Dubai city.
8. Show me which I don’t know or interesting to know 😮
Trivia or show some facts about Dubai. Two reasons to show that, one is for informative and a hook for the user, to get intrigued into the city. Two, is the user can boost about it later. You know, people like to do that.
9. Pick the dates 📆
When a user picks the dates of travel, here a feature is there which I call the ‘Frequency of events’. In this, user can know which weeks, there are more or less events and choose that duration for his/her visit.
or, can plan according to those events. Like, if the user needs a calm week or a week full of events, he/she can choose accordingly.
10. The best part-Plan & edit my itinerary 🗺
Now, users need a simple tool to plan their travel end to end, without an agent making it for them. Agents charge too much as a package, which new users go to, without much options for them.
The features here are
- Here, all added POIs are routed intelligently according to the nearest and the farthest, and split into days(according to the duration which you have selected).
- From each POI to another, click on the route to book the transport(different modes of transport)available in that city.
- It gives you individual POI time and holistic trip estimated average time you can spend, calculated according to the distance and fares of mode of transport selected by you.
- Emergency info is needed for any traveller, just so you get stuck up somewhere(hope you never need this).
11. Track on phone the whole trip 📲
Start and track the trip on your phone, when you are experiencing it. It is like a calendar update for you, but more dynamically updating. So the itinerary can be sent to phone or in future can develop an app for that. More handy experience while on the go.
12. Get me a travel journal & a guide map, friend! 📒
Travel guide maps are no more being talked about much and slowly fading away. One can find these guides maps in hotels or metros only. Let’s give a map and a journal for the user to carry tangible memories during every trip or after the trip.
Paste and write your takeaways or memories, in the journal, which you can cherish later.
Find the detail project here on Behance.
Its not for Dubai Tourism website only…
The scalability is one of the key reasons to start designing with one city. If one city we build a uniform standard design, that can be used for all cities across the globe with minor contextual changes. That’s the whole point.
End of the day, it’s all about travel experience, it can be any city. This solution enhancement can be done to all tourism websites in the world.
It’s a small effort by me to enhance the travel experience. Let’s collectively, all like minded professionals make it more humanised for all travellers.
Please leave your feedback on it.
Till then,
Apka safar kushalmangal ho! (means Hope you have a happy trip).
Thanks for your time folks. 😊
