More Related Content Similar to Insight into travel & transportation (20) Insight into travel & transportation1. Perpetual Motion
Why Travel & Transportation will never be the same
Fjord Strategy
August 2012
Slide 1 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
2. What we‟ll cover
1. Setting the scene
The landscape and how it’s changed
2. The new frontier
Key themes for understanding the new landscape
3. What do we do now?
Principles for travelling
4. Opportunity spaces
Areas to apply these frameworks and principles
Slide 2 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
4. We get around
At home (or in a
familiar base)
Mobility is core to the
On my On my way
human condition – we somewhere
way back
have evolved based on
our motion. At the heart
of this is a very simple
cycle.
Somewhere else
Slide 4 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
6. People are ruining everything
(for traditional businesses)
Peer-to-peer services are cutting into territory formerly owned by industry giants
• Hotel chains
• Guide books
• Specialised Tour Operators
• Navigation & Traffic
….and are branching out into public transportation and Car Rental too…
Businesses will need to drastically upgrade their value propositions if they are to survive.
Slide 6 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
7. And there‟s no place like home anymore
(these people may be rare, but they‟re influential)
Colocation for the non-wealthy.
• As globalisation and the availability of low-cost intercity travel sends more and more business
travellers around the world for work, a growing number of these road warriors maintain multiple
residences in the places they visit most often (or like the best). They challenge notions about what
it means to be „at home‟ – which home?
The 2000k commute.
• The same low travel costs make it possible for people to live wherever they want to, sometimes
commuting a few hours by plane rather than by car or public transport – for example, the CEO of a
London-based startup might live in the Alps to be close to his favourite hobbies and give his
children the kind of upbringing he thinks best, and commute to London every week*. These people
take the demand for commuting efficiency in air and long-distance rail travel to a whole new level.
Global Nomads are a real, and growing, segment.
• “Global Nomads,” professionals who have no fixed address at all, have very sophisticated
preferences and advanced knowledge of the travel industries – what‟s more, they have become
hubs of travel knowledge and advice for their social networks.
* This is a true scenario involving a person known to Fjord.
Slide 7 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
8. These aren‟t the right questions
Business or
Leisure?
Long or Short?
Budget or
Luxury?
? City Break or
Adventure?
Family, Romantic
or Solo?
Guided or
Independent?
Old-school travel categories aren‟t fluid enough to address the needs of today‟s
travellers, and create dangerous levels of fragmentation in a digital service environment.
Different things are important to different people, and these questions don‟t adequately
capture context. So what does?
Slide 8 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
9. The critical question for travel
Is it ROUTINE? Or is it an EXCEPTION?
• Twice a day between Bethnal • Somewhere I‟ve never been
Green and Oxford Circus • Somewhere I usually visit alone
• Once a month from Berlin to or for business, this time going
London with family or friends
• Once a year from London to • A mode of transport I rarely use
Thailand (e.g. road trip in a rented car)
Slide 9 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
10. This shapes fundamental priorities
ROUTINE VS. EXCEPTION
Delays Directions
Friends Places/Sights
Distraction Focus
Efficiency Discovery
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11. Routine Exception
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12. Routine Exception
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13. Routine Exception
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14. Routine Exception
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15. Personal context is the next layer
Routine vs. Exception is the foundation of context for travel and transportation. The next
layer is personal preferences – including financial comfort, hobbies and interests,
destination preferences, accommodation priorities, etc.
Slide 15 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
16. I am who I am,
wherever I am
People like to run, or enjoy art, or great
coffee. These preferences travel with them
wherever they go.
Slide 16 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
17. Social factors complete the picture
The topmost layer is the individual‟s social graph – family, friends, trust networks and
collective preferences.
Slide 17 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
18. My people are an
extension of me
Family, friends, partners – loved ones are
an important part of how we travel, whether
Slide 18 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
they are with us or elsewhere.
19. A framework for opportunity
Taken together, these layers of context create a framework for evaluating service
propositions and uncovering new opportunities for business and customer relationships.
Slide 19 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
20. 2. This is a new frontier
Slide 20 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
21. Three keys to navigating the landscape
1. The Experience is as important as the destination.
Car manufacturers have understood this for years. Whether the customer‟s expectation is a quick
and effortless journey, or the journey is the focus, an experience that extends beyond traditional
boundaries can have massive value and impact.
2. Peer-to-Peer services are here to stay.
No longer a supplement to traditional business, or a money-saver for students and budget
travellers – P2P services now offer quality and professionalism equal to or greater than the
industry leaders.
3. Everyone (and everything) is everywhere.
Even when we‟re not physically present, we‟re virtually there. Aggregate data from the masses
supports the needs of the individual. Mobile content sharing means we can take everyone on
holiday with us. Review sites provide the means for instant global broadcasting of every delight –
and every complaint.
Slide 21 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
22. Theme: The experience is as
important as the destination
Whether it‟s efficiency or exploration,
experiences need to match with
expectations.
Slide 22 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
23. KLM now offers a service that
allows customers to select
seatmates based on Facebook
or LinkedIn profiles, giving
passengers unprecedented
control over their on-board
experience.
Flying high
Virgin Atlantic has taken their experience well beyond the simple flight – in addition to
award-winning seats and a swank on-board bar, their lounge, spa and chauffeur
service extends the overall „rockstar‟ promise.
Slide 23 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
24. The open road
Some people love to drive. Whether they‟re focussed on getting there as quickly as possible, or on
discovering something new along the way, in-car interfaces need to give drivers the freedom to
configure the experience that suits them on that day – scenery or traffic, official or peer-to-peer.
Slide 24 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
25. Freedom of
movement
At the opposite end of the scale is
the self-driving car, which Google
has been testing and could be on
the streets in less than a decade.
As drivers relax into only part-time
(or less) responsibility, they‟ll have
more attention for content – email
or documents on the way to and
from work; games for old and
young alike.
Slide 25 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
26. Precious moments
Delivering the right experience means understanding the
unique needs of any journey –P2P services offer huge
flexibility in terms of lodging, tours, activities, social
opportunities. Big chain hotels with a „one size fits all‟
mentality are finding it increasingly difficult to compete.
Boutique and design hotels, meanwhile,
have gained ground because they offer
another kind of value – free high-tech
amenities like WiFi and iPod docks,
sometimes even iPads, combine with
beautiful design and personal service
that travellers remember, value and
recommend.
Slide 26 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
27. Don‟t make me
think!
With the proliferation of review and price
comparison sites, many travellers –
especially those with less experience –
are feeling overwhelmed. This has led to
a sharp increase in the use of travel
agents over the past 12-18 months
(including niche agencies such as Black
Tomato, shown here), and also explains
the rise of curated collections like Tablet
Hotels and Design Hotels.
These businesses provide a service that
assures travellers the experience of their
journey will meet their desires and
expectations, without them having to do
the legwork.
Slide 27 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
28. A vehicle for every
journey
Automobile manufacturers no longer
stop at cars – in an effort to capture a
consumer market more concerned with
environmentally friendly, healthier
transport, many manufacturers (VW,
BMW, Mercedes, Maserati, etc.) are
now making bicycles as well.
Some have also engaged with the
short-term car hire market through
programs like BMW‟s DriveNow.
Slide 28 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
29. Theme: P2P is
here to stay
We are only at the beginning of the
Peer-to-Peer revolution.
Slide 29 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
30. Pro-sumer evolves
into pro-merchant
Flat sharing, once relegated to bare-bones listings
sites like Craigslist, has become a legitimate business
– and it‟s not just about flats anymore. People are now
sharing all sorts of things – houses, bicycles, flats,
boats, unoccupied land.
P2P services stay competitive by taking a smaller cut
than traditional agents, but equally importantly they
observe the behaviours of their users and adjust the
experience accordingly. Gidsy and AirBNB both
provide a framework that‟s strong enough to enable
and encourage both merchants and buyers to engage,
yet open enough to flexibly accommodate users‟
unforeseen ideas.
Slide 30 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
31. P2P technology catches up
Thanks to NFC technologies and marketplaces like the Apple and Android app stores,
high-end security infrastructure is no longer the exclusive domain of the manufacturer or
major auto rental agency. The P2P service Getaround offers its customers proprietary
technology similar to that used by DriveNow or Zipcar.
Equivalent security from a neighbour and a megachain? This completely alters the
terrain, capitalising on the basic human desire to connect with others. Provided the
service and technology are up to par, many will choose P2P over corporate for emotional
reasons alone.
Slide 31 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
32. The personal touch
What sounds better: a one-size-fits-all tour
around town, led by a bored and underpaid
guide, or a customised and intimate walk
focused on what *you‟re* interested in, led by
someone who‟s passionate about it, in your
native language?.
Humans will almost always choose the more
personalised, intimate, tailor-made engagements.
This is why services like Gidsy are so successful –
they faciliate the connections between those
willing to offer experiences and those who want to
partake in them. No large corporation could offer a
comparable breadth of choice.
Slide 32 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
33. Something for every budget
Because P2P service
platforms are
inherently flexible,
they tend to contain a
much broader range
of cost options.
Renting a flat that
sleeps 10 on AirBNB
could cost less than a
double room at a
high-end hotel;
borrowing a car from
the guy down the
street will almost
certainly be cheaper
than agency rates.
Slide 33 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
34. Theme: Everyone
(& everything)
is everywhere
We take more than luggage with us
when we travel.
Slide 34 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
35. Everybody‟s
holiday
Gone are the days of the awkward post-
holiday slidshow. Nowadays, thanks to
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, EyeEm,
iCloud etc., we can take our friends and
family with us when we travel. While many
people still create photo books (physical or
digital) when they get home, increasingly
people share their travels on the fly and let
their whole social network participate in the
journey.
The other side of this is that we can take
anything with us on the road – whether
that‟s work to catch up on, or our entire
library of beachside fiction.
Slide 35 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
36. Safety in numbers
The flipside of P2P services are
aggregate data services. Large-scale
review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp and
Qype have been helping people for
years, but newer services are taking
things further.
Waze uses data from millions of users to
generate realtime traffic alerts and
navigation, as well as show drivers
useful tips like speed camera and speed
trap locations, accidents, and who offers
the best fuel prices.
Slide 36 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
37. Mash it up!
Banjo, Sonar and Circle use aggregate data
from multiple social platforms to provide
connections and suggestions.
These services provide value by translating
masses of data into useful, actionable
information - without the need to read dozens of
reviews and suggestions.
Slide 37 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
38. How are you
feeling?
A new bumper crop of objects are
coming onto the market to help
soften the effects of distance.
These appeal to road warriors
with partners and children at
home, as well as to parents
whose adult children and
grandchildren live far away.
Visceral and simple, these
objects evoke a sense of
togetherness that traditional
technological services – texts,
emails, even photos – cannot.
Slide 38 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
39. 3. What do we
do now?
Principles for travelling through
the new landscape
Slide 39 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
40. Let people be the
inspiration
We‟ve already established that the
traditional categories of travel and
transportation are not relevant
anymore. The only way to
successfully negotiate this
changing landscape is to put
people first.
Observing human behaviour – and
there are ample opportunities at
every airport, hotel lobby and train
station to do so – is the surest way
to uncover opportunities to
improve existing services and
invent new ones.
Slide 40 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
41. Make it pleasant, not seamless
Clever services make the transition from one step to the next feel pleasant and
understandable – but not invisible. Particularly when moving around, we need to
understand where we are and what‟s going to happen next.
Research has shown that something as simple as notifications of delays to a flight
significantly increase customer satisfaction and trust – and these SMS are not seen as an
intrusion, because they provide relevant information.
Different destinations have different immigration and security requirements – services
that help travellers know what to expect can gain a lot of goodwill, and businesses that
strike a balance between making things run smoothly and managing customer
expectations will continue to win in the travel landscape.
Slide 41 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
42. Match complexity to context
Travel can be hugely complex –
every transit station, airport and
road system has its own
peculiarities, and this can be
stressful for seasoned travellers and
occasional holidaymakers alike.
Then again, frequent travellers are
easily irritated by superfluous
information about places and
systems they already know.
Taking note of which journeys are
routine and which are exceptional,
and adjusting the default information
settings accordingly, will go a long
way to improving the experience of
travel.
Slide 42 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
43. Balance the measures of success
Single point of focus Focus on many
areas at once
Know „what‟ but
not „why‟ Confusion
The trick is to choose a framework of KPIs that work together to show
you not just what your customers are doing, but why they might be doing
it; not just how your business is performing, but where the opportunities
lie to improve.
Slide 43 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
44. Look at the whole
ecosystem
People engage with many hubs of the travel
ecosystem on every journey – think if it as a
series of interconnected parts that can work
together.
Slide 44 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
45. When you put people first, great things
can happen for business.
Slide 45 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
46. 4. Opportunity
Spaces
Places to apply our thinking
Slide 46 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
47. Think laterally
One of the most prominent
patterns in all this change is the
blending of concepts that used
to be kept separate. Gidsy, for
example, is a combination of a
number of existing ideas; it‟s
the combination that‟s
innovative. Social
Localisat ion
Grap h
P2P Event
Com m erce Planning
Looking acoss contexts of use Sp ecialist Niche
to find new value in existing Know led g e Int erest s
information opens up great
opportunities for service based
relationships.
Slide 47 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
48. Everywhere is
home
Connected objects and the app ecosystem open
up the possibility to make anywhere – any car, any
airplane seat, any hotel room – feel a bit more like
home.
Auto manufacturers have already begin to embed
personal preferences in an NFC or SIM based
keyfob. What if my entertainment, food and
sleeping position preferences could be saved and
applied to every airplane seat I travel in?
Or what if every hotel room I stayed in had a lamp
that connected to my daughter‟s night-table at
home?
Personal touches like this are precious to people,
and offer an opportunity for larger players – hotel
chains, airlines, railways – to establish deeper
value in their passenger relationships.
Slide 48 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
49. No more „us vs. them‟
All this P2P trading has made many traditional businesses nervous, but it doesn‟t have to be such a
pitched battle.
What if the big players helped to facilitate P2P interactions? What if cities funded and facilitated local
experts and tour guides? Or auto manufacturers facilitated shared-ownership schemes? What if a
hotel chain co-branded with like-minded flat owners to create a hybrid service that brought the best of
both worlds to the consumer?
Opportunities exist to break down boundaries and establish new business models that allow
businesses to do what they do best – and people to do what they do best.
Slide 49 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
50. The portable self
One of the most common causes for stress
amongst travellers is remembering all the things
we‟ll need for the journey. These are remarkably
similar from person to person, and indeed hotel
chains have long provided toiletry kits for an
additional fee.
What if a service could learn what I need for
which kinds of journeys and transmit that
information to anyone who could use it?
What if a hotel (or an AirBNB host) provided not
only basic toiletries and WiFi, but also chargers,
and perhaps even a card for the local Public
Transit System?
Something as simple as chargers for laptop,
phones and cameras saves up to a kg or more in
packing weight, and lightens the mental load as
well. And anticipating a customer‟s needs can
feel, to them, like magic.
Slide 50 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
51. Interpreters
needed
As new mash-up services begin to
resolve the crisis of choice and
travellers become more comfortable
with P2P options, the market for travel
agents and package operators will
contract again.
But people will still need guidance –
whether that‟s someone to help them
plan their entire journey or simply
someone to show them around once
they get there. P2P services that offer
end-to-end planning could be the next
big thing, and businesses that help to
facilitate this could establish
themselves for a long-term win.
Slide 51 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
52. Personal data brokerage
As customers become more savvy about their data, new opportunities open for merchants to barter discounts or
freebies in exchange for access to personal information. This means opportunity for deeper, more meaningful
relationships with customers.
Slide 52 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
53. Remember:
It‟s the system,
not the part.
Slide 53 © Fjord 2012 | Confidential
Editor's Notes This diagram shows how many different things an individual might have to deal with on a single trip – making the transitions from one to the next happen more smoothly is a huge opportunity. Business and Personal life are no longer kept as separate as they once were. Increasingly, business travelers want to connect with personal contacts wherever they go.As businesses become more global, commuting isn’t necessarily short-term anymore – an increasing proportion of the global workforce works remotely or has a regular ‘commute’ of several hundred miles or more. If I’m in a familiar place or taking a familiar journey, I probably already know where I’m going, and so am more concerned with delays than with directions. When I’m in my routine, I might want to know when a friend of mine is somewhere en route for a cup of coffee and a catch up. By contrast, if I’m in an unfamiliar place, I might be more interested in detours that take in more interesting sights. When I’m on a regular commute, I’m probably more up for distraction – shopping, vouchers, etc.. If I’m on an exception, I’m probably more open to suggestions of places to go that are new to me. Driving a regular route, I want to know the most efficient way to get there. While in a new place, I may be looking for things to explore. http://www.flickr.com/photos/almilan/1427431027/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/marionzetta/2954337674/ This needn’t only apply to airlines – any experience can be improved with an injection of style or personality. Some might say that railway travel can only ever be utilitarian, but what about the Orient Express? This is where I’d put notes about the stuff on this slide, further details, etc… All photos from AirBNB.com Along the seams particularly, the tiniest things will make us deliriously happy (e.g. I want to fly Lufthansa because of this 1 minute they saved me…) Image: http://www.windingroad.com/ 2008 “Facebook Open Graph” image taken from “Facebook Cookbook, Building Applications to Grow Your Facebook Empire.” http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/9780596518172/toc.html (Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images) http://thecelebration.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/this-way-sign.jpg