Case study: Redefining tour bookings
For KUONI
Kuoni is part of DER Touristik (part of the German REWE Group) and is based in Dorking, Surrey, England. Kuoni UK has been in the premium long-haul tour operating business since 1966, following the acquisition of Challis & Benson Ltd.
It is a tourism company, operating various services including charter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines and hotels in destinations around the world across nine different geographic regions.
The company specialises in luxury and tailor-made travel for both business and consumer markets as well as related services such as visa processing. In 2013, the Kuoni Group was named “World’s Leading Luxury Tour Operator” at the annual World Travel Awards.
They have a range of:
- Voyages Jules Verne (now trading as Jules Verne)
- CV Villas
- Kirker Holidays
- Carrier
- Journey Latin America
- Kuoni Retail
Kuoni UK has a network of 48 retail stores including 15 located in John Lewis.
Following a corporate restructuring in the late 2000s, and at the end of 2015, Kuoni consists of three central divisions:
- GTS (Global Travel Services), B2B offerings
- GTD (Global Travel Distribution, B2B offering consisting of Fully Independent Travel (FIT) service
- VFS Services, B2G offering visa processing services to governments
High-Level Goal
Design the post-log-in experience for managing a quote, and managing bookings online based on user and tailor-made trip booking research.
Methodology — Design Thinking
Market and Segment Overview
The tourism market segmentation can be broadly divided into the following types:
Geographic
Geographic market segmentation is done considering the factors such as tourists’ place of origin. This factor is important as the tourists belonging to different places are brought up with different cultures and show different traits of behavior. It is the most basic type of segmentation.
Demographic
This segmentation is done by considering the tourist’s gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, occupation, religion, income, education, and family members.
Psychographic
The marketing people do this segmentation by taking into account the psyche of the tourists. They gather information about the tourists’ interests, attitudes, their way of living life, opinions, and overall personality.
Classes of Tourists
Depending upon the motives and the way of touring, there are various classes of tourists
Tourists Traveling with Families
The tourists who visit places with their first and extended families, or families of relatives. One person, generally the head of the tourist family is the decision maker. The families generally travel for holidays and leisure and tend to expend sparingly. They generally are keen on receiving the best services for what they have paid. They tend to carry more luggage.
Single Tourists
They travel alone and are independent. They pursue travel as a hobby. The gap year travelers, unmarried persons, widows/widowers, backpackers, and solitary tourists travel single. They decide for themselves and tend to expend more. They tend to carry less stuff on the journey. They tend to behave balanced if any challenging situation occurs and are rational towards tour schedules.
Groups of Tourists
Students from schools and universities as members of educational tours, fellows of various fraternities with common interests, groups of newly-weds, or senior citizens.
Tourists Visiting Friends and Relatives
These tourists travel to meet friends or relatives, or to attend a celebration or gatherings. These tourists generally plan their tours in the breaks such as Diwali holidays, Christmas holidays, or any kind of long break.
Business Tourists
They are the professional tourists on the business trips. They decide for themselves but do not spend much money. For example, a sales or a marketing person travels to another city to attend a business fair, and business manager travels to another country for business deals.
Incentive Tourists
They tour for consuming the reward they received in the form of a few days family holiday package at some hotel or resort. Such rewards are generally distributed if an employee performs outstanding to achieve the goals.
Health Tourists
These tourists travels to places with the agenda of health on their mind. They travel to avail some special medical treatment, operation, surgery, medication, or inexpensive aesthetic surgeries available in different country. Some tourists in this category also travel if they are suffering from some illness due to the climate at their residence such as Asthma.
Demographic Trends
Students
1/5 market share worth of $320 billion
Millennials
Fastest growing segment with average spend of $3000 spend
Gen X
Biggest market for leisure trips and holds big revenue share
Baby Boomers
Four to five trips in a year and popularity in international segment. Revenue market share is close to Gen X
Analysing website from UX perspective to understand its effectiveness and competetive analysis was the next step in order to develop holistic understanding.
Design Decisions based on Secondary research
Based on the insights from the secondary research design decisions were made as following:
- The mature market segment i.e. Millenial and Gen X (Travelling for leisure/ exploration trips) will be focused (international travellers — group, single, leisure, vacation) for studies further
- The disrupters, which is student segment and baby boomers, will be addressed separately in alignment with an iterations after first user testing
- Qualitative research through interview will be conducted with 4 candidates — 2 from each category with following key points:
- Reasons for travel
- Preparation — process and support
- On field expectations — support
- After the trip experience and communication
4. Solutions will be proposed based on customer journey map and interview insights
Now was the time to zoom-in more and understand the each segments quality expectations.
I designed 2 personas for the same:
I approached one candidate from each segment (I know the ideal number is 3–5 but I would like to blame COVID for not able to get enough candidates :D)
Find the guidelines here
Insights of this study, as following, helped me to narrow down the area of work:
Category: Millennial
- Easy on pocket yet offbeat experiences are in demand
- Curated content with on ground experience is valued
- Expectation of multiple choices to choose from, based on requirement
- Requirements are majorly depending on: Travel partner, Reason of travel and Budget
- UI personnalisation is highly preferred
- Option to get trips as per search criteria (Days, Mood, Budget, Type, Location, Include, Exclude)
- Option to get instant digital support at all stages of the trip
- Incentives for Review (Everyone is micro influencer), Referral, Repeat customer
- Digital Interaction has a huge scope to evolve to match the brand equity
- Human touch (as and when required) can ensure the sale
Category: Gen X
- Prefers human interaction over only digital
- Need — end to end solution
- Prefers group tour
- Needs in-person assistance on sight
- Prefer calling company and having dedicated travel expert all the time (Club style)
- Focuses mostly on sight seeing
- Choose comfort over experience
- Need to see reviews from the same age group
- Expects digital product to be less of learning and finding task and more of interaction
- Insurance coverage needs to be assured
- Digital Interaction has a huge scope to evolve to match the brand equity
- Human touch (as and when required) can ensure the sale
Design Decisions based on Primary Research
Based on the insights from the primary research design decisions were made as following:
Interaction
- Digital presence will be enhanced and option of interaction will be given to users as per environment
- Option to apply filter before browsing will be provided
- User journeys will be shorter
Business+Marketing
- Incorporation of content for local and offbeat experiences will be done through collaboration
- Best deals will be highlighted to cater to target segment
- Option to save curated trips will be provided (need to study further from an e-commerce perspective)
Based on all this primary and secondary insights I mapped customer journies to come up with opportunities.
Aligning these opportunities with the user and business goal was the next obvious step:
As the blue print was read, so was the Feature road map, Sitemap, User-flow and Wireframes as following:
Brand personality was redefined based on the existing branding to make it relatable as per target segment:
And the final product proposal for the defined scenario for users to evaluate…
User testing planning and outcome is here
- UI is more engaging and attracting than original
- Please define the history and sharing options
- Can you connect only on voice call?
- Great filters, have you checked its feasibility?
- Idea is great to have customisation and booking entirely on the call
- Loved the feature of knowing and choosing your guide prior to the trip
- It will be great if you could gather the entire relevant content on a single platform related to the specific location
Growth map
- Priorities and timeline insights from user testing
- Define and design second layer information
Thank you for reading :)
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Email for any feedback and suggestions.
