Project Overview
Expedia Group (EG) is a leading travel agency that helps connect travelers with Expedia's partners. Their mission is to facilitate global travel for everyone.
Our design team was charged with exploring multiple approaches to integrate Expedia's lines of business (flights, hotel/vacation rentals, rental cars, activities) into different social media platforms. This could potentially provide additional options for planning and booking travel, while also increasing customer awareness for Expedia as a company. On the other hand, incorporating Expedia and its businesses into social media platforms also provides content creators the opportunity to monetize off booked travel.
My Contributions
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Literature Review
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Data Analysis
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User Interviews
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Journey Mapping
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Wireframing
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User Testing
Goals for the project
Enhance users' confidence in booking travel plans and experiences
Foster customer loyalty to position Expedia as a dependable source for users
Increase Expedia’s website traffic and bookings while driving revenue for Expedia
Identified scope
​We decided to focus our proposed design solution on Instagram as the selected social media platform. Primary research conducted among the target audience showed that most of them heavily rely on Instagram when gathering travel inspiration. Moreover, from our research, we decided to target the part of the journey that addresses how users gather inspiration from posts shared by family and friends or others they follow on the platform. To support the inspiration gathering on Instagram, our team also explored how to create a feedback loop of people sharing their Expedia vacations so that the ecosystem could be built naturally.
Understanding The Problem Area
Using Expedia’s Current Infrastructure
To unify people’s research and planning process issues outlined in the previous scenario, our team wanted to take advantage of Expedia’s trip board feature. This allows people to invite trip collaborators and add trip ideas to a shared board. Our main hypothesis behind why people don’t use it is because by the time people know what they want to do, there’s no reason to switch to a different platform and set it up again.
To get more people booking trips through Expedia (trip boards or in general), our team believed it was best to get people using the platform not just for booking, but for inspiration.
Learning how People Interpret Instagram Inspiration
To gain a deeper understanding of the utilization of Instagram for travel inspiration, we sought to explore the skepticism of travel influencers. Through our research in trying to understand why people trust friends more than influencers, we uncovered the following insights.
What this research told us...
The research findings revealed several key points regarding the nature of Instagram inspiration. The study demonstrated that users do not place significant value on editing and prefer original travel content that allows them to envision themselves in similar experiences (Parsi, 2021). Additionally, users appreciate travel hacks that are focused on creating genuine experiences, rather than solely serving the interests of influencers. The ability for users to become model-like figures and inspire others to have similar experiences is also highly valued. However, some users, such as John, express concerns about the authenticity of popular influencers who may prioritize compensation over providing genuine travel advice (Smith, 2019). Overall, the research highlights the importance of originality and authenticity in Instagram travel content.
Search engines and social media platforms could consider ways to prioritize trustworthy content and promote more ethical and sustainable travel practices.
What y'all have been waiting for...
The Solution
Saving travel inspiration through social media
One part of our final design focused on users being able to save travel inspiration from social media to their Expedia Trip Board.
Since the social media platform we decided to use was Instagram, we composed a feature that included Expedia tags within an Instagram post. A location tag will be visible on the post, just like an account tag.
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When the tag is pressed, it will show the location of that event on a map. This map is already a feature on Instagram. Below the map, it will show some details of that event, such as the name of the event, the price, and some related Instagram posts
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It will also allow the user to visit the Expedia website, as well as add the event to their Expedia Trip Board
The Expedia website will first come up as a pop-up webpage within Instagram, but if the user wants to visit the website in their browser app, they will be able to do that as well
Uploading travel experiences on social media
The other part of our final solution included sharing users’ own trips on Instagram. When posting photos of their vacation, the user can tag their Expedia bookings in their post. As long as their Expedia and Instagram accounts are connected, Instagram will have access to the events that the user has booked on Expedia.
Current Instagram screens
Introduced step after adding filters
The user will go through the regular posting process, selecting the photos they want to share and then adding filters to them. After selecting photos and applying filters, the user has the opportunity to add Expedia tags to their post. The tags are automatically detected from the Expedia account data. Also, each tag added will give the user points toward their Expedia account. Here, users can swipe through their pictures to make sure the tags have been applied correctly, and easily jump to the place to edit them if they’re mismatched
If the listings are correct, the user can press “Apply Now” and the tags added will appear on the final screen before posting. The option to edit them after being applied is also available.
This button would be visible regardless of if the user’s account is linked to Expedia to increase awareness even if a user might not be interested. This would also be a pathway for people to connect their accounts if they aren’t already - leading to onboarding of the feature.
Tagging another user on Instagram (reference design)
Our version of tagging with the added tab at the bottom
Tagging Expedia listings will happen in the same place that users are tagged in. This means the same interactions will apply - tapping on the tag to remove it, tapping on the photo to add a tag, and swiping to the side to switch pictures. If users are confused where the tag came from, they can press the “Learn more” button which would open a web page (probably in the form of a blog post or video) that introduces the concept of Expedia tags.
Our version of adding Expedia listings
Instagram’s Add Music screen
When users tap on the photo to add listings, they can search by name or look through their different trip boards that are synced with their Expedia account in case people forget the name of the booking. Users will only be able to add a booking if the location matches the geolocation data attached to the photo so listings can be kept more accurate. Ineligible listings are grayed out to indicate they can’t be added. If they’re still pressed, the following error popup will appear.
If a user potentially forgets which trip it was in or what the name was, they can go to suggested and find potential matches for their photo.
If the user gets to the final posting screen before the app is done checking for bookings, they will be able to see that Instagram has automatically detected locations (after a short loading period). It also tells the user how many Expedia rewards points these locations can give them. If the button is pressed, it would lead them back to the summary screen above on the right.
How our solution accomplishes our project goals?
1. Enhance user’s confidence in booking travel plans and experiences
2. Foster customer loyalty to position Expedia as a dependable source for users
3. Increase Expedia’s website traffic and bookings while driving revenue for Expedia
References
Amir, A. F., Mohd Hafizan, N. N., Mohd Anuar, N. A., Asyraff, M. A., & Shahril, Z. @.
(2022). The influence of Instagram travel content on intention to visit tourist destinations. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(11). https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v12-i11/15615
Liu, H., Wu, L., & Li, X. (R. (2018). Social Media Envy: How Experience Sharing on social
networking sites drives millennials’ aspirational tourism consumption. Journal of Travel Research, 58(3), 355–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287518761615
Parsi, P. (2021, January 7). How Instagram is changing the tourism industry. Sea Going
Green. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.seagoinggreen.org/blog/2021/1/7/how-instagram-is-changing-the-tourism-industry
Smith, S. P. (2019). Landscapes for “likes”: Capitalizing on travel with Instagram. Social
Semiotics, 31(4), 604–624. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2019.1664579
Xiang, Z., Wöber, K., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2008). Representation of the online tourism
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Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search.
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Rebeka-Anna Pop, Zsuzsa Săplăcan, Dan-Cristian Dabija & Mónika-Anetta Alt (2022)
The impact of social media influencers on travel decisions: the role of trust in
consumer decision journey, Current Issues in Tourism, 25:5, 823-843, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2021.1895729