Product management exercise. Creating a product to improve Tiket.com accommodation product. Author: Ade Harnusa Azril https://medium.com/@adehazril

1. Improving
Tiket.com
Accommodation
Product Exercise
ADEHARNUSAAZRIL

2. A Little
Background
COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing threat to the travel industry. With so many
uncertainty and fear, the world changed their travel behavior, especially those
who used to travel away from home with an airplane. This change not only
affects travel transportation industry, but travel accommodation as well.
But then, people adapts. People started to take vacations again, but they go to
destinations closer to home now. A lot of those who work from office everyday
now work from home or any other places remotely. With this adaptation, comes
new opportunities that we could seize to regrow Tiket.com as a platform.
Here, I would be focusing on new features that can be built upon these new
opportunities, with respect to the current Tiket.com accommodation product.

3. The Goal
Grow the number of users and
bookings of Tiket.com
accommodation product.

4. Lone traveler
Couple/romantic travelers
Family travelers
Friend group travelers
How COVID-19 changed them:
Travel habit shifts from big trips far
from home several times a year to local
staycations or roadtrips to neighboring
cities.
Can be broken down into several
types:
Leisure Travelers
Accommodation
User Segments
How COVID-19 changed them:
Fewer travel frequency as most
communcations shift to online.
Remote working trend creates
possibility for people to work
anywhere, even from a different city.
Some accommodations try to cater this
new behavior by offering long stays
package.
Business Travelers

5. User Segment
Focus
I chose to focus on leisure
travelers here because this is the
one with potentially bigger
impact in terms of revenue and
user count.
Fewer business travel frequency due to pandemic.
Long stays is still an unproven concept and already
competes with dorms.
Smaller target demographics.
Other reasons as to why I didn't pick business travelers are:

6. Leisure
Travelers
Pain Points
When planning a stay.
"When should I stay? What if something happens or the
situation gets worse by the time I'm supposed to stay?"
Deciding when to stay
"I have some hotels I want to try, which one should I try right
now?" Which will further be exacerbated when planning in a
group.
Deciding where to stay
Comparing multiple room rates across multiple dates is
cumbersome.
Getting a good price
Usually one person has to "take one for the team" making the
payment. Then collect the payment from others after that.
Splitting payment among group

7. Choosing room with free
cancellation term.
Wait and see.
Guesstimate. e.g.
"Hopefully the situation
will get better by 2021."
Discussing with
friends/family/partner.
Deciding when to
stay
How Are They Solving
This Right Now?
Keeping a
shortlist/wishlist.
Comparing prices,
amenities, locations,
designs, reviews.
Discussing with
friends/family/partner.
Deciding where to
stay
Comparing multiple room
rates across multiple
dates
Looking for promotions.
Waiting for promotions.
Getting a good
price
Collecting payment from
others manually.
Splitting payment
among group

8. Let's Provide a
Better Way to
Plan
In case of staycation or roadtrip, it is
common to plan & decide either from weeks
ahead or a few days before. Based on what I
saw from OTA platforms here, it seems like
no one is dipping their toes further in the
planning phase, even when some value can
be provided in this phase to ease the pain
points described before. So I would like to
focus on improving the user's planning
phase.

9. Introducing
PlanBook*
A set of features aimed to
help users plan their stay,
alone or with others.
*Working title (^_^)
Save rooms you're interested in to the shortlist to
easily compare between them.
Shortlist
Invite friends/families to PlanBook. They can vote
your shortlist or add their own pick to it.
Plan Together
Never miss an opportunity when a price drop
happens on rooms in the shortlist.
Price Alert
Split payment with others. Each pays only their
portion, with payment method of their choice.
Split Payment

10. How Shortlist Works
The core concept of this feature is akin to a wishlist or bookmark.
Shortlist is grouped. Not unlike a Collection in Instagram (inside Saved feature) or a Board
in Pinterest.
User can add room to the shortlist by clicking a new button on the room card or room
details.
Each shortlist group (let's call this Stay Plan for now) has its own details page.
On the Stay Plan details page there is a date picker, when user pick a date, all the rates of
the room in that shortlist will be updated. So they can compare across different dates and
different rooms with a single action.
Most of other features of PlanBook will be on the Stay Plan details page.
I think it can be interesting if user can share their Stay Plan to public (view only).
Note:

11. How Plan Together Works
Invite other Tiket.com users to Stay Plan page by sharing invite link, inputting their phone
number, or inputting their email.
If the invitee doesn't already have Tiket.com account, they will be prompted to register first.
Invited user can add/edit the shortlist and can vote on the rooms they like.

12. How Price Alert Works
User set their budget and stay period in the Stay Plan page.
When a room price on the set period hits the budget, user gets a notification.
Another alternative is to give user price alert based on historical data, for example: if the
saved room rate is dropped to its lowest rate this year.
Can potentially be tied to current promotions (e.g. use voucher code STAY10 and you can
stay at Alila SCBD Deluxe Rooms within your budget).
Note:

13. How Split Payment Works
User can choose to split payment with other users when checking out.
The split amount can be changed so it is possible to split unequally with others.
After split payment request is made, each user will get notification with link to complete
payment.
Each user can pay with their own payment method of choice.
This feature adds convenience but there are still scenarios to be discussed such as what
will happen if not all of them complete the payment? Is it way more complicated to refund?
Also need to discuss what will happen to promo that tied to payment method if each of the
users can choose their own payment method.
Note:

14. Access to Stay Plan
Stay Plans can be accessed mainly from the
Accommodation landing page.
On this screen, Stay Plans user made are displayed
as cards. The rightmost card is a button to create
new Stay Plan.
If user have never created a Stay Plan before, only
the create button will be displayed.

15. Adding Rooms to
Shortlist
From hotel details page

16. Adding Rooms to
Shortlist
From room details page

17. Adding Rooms to
Shortlist (Contd.)
If the user never created a Stay Plan before, a
create new Stay Plan screen will be shown.
Otherwise, it will show a list of created Stay
Plan (with a button to add new one).
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18. Stay Plan Page
Trip name and date, changing the date will
update the rate of all the rooms in this screen.
Users that has access to this Stay Plan and
button to invite new user.
Maps showing the locations of all the hotels
shortlisted.
List of shortlisted rooms, showing room
pictures, amenities, and price.
Vote button with information on how many
users vote on this room.
Add another room button, will direct user to
hotel search page.
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19. Sprint Roadmap
Basic shortlist functionality consists of adding rooms to
a general shortlist (no grouping to Stay Plan).
Basic Stay Plan page consists of shortlist improvement
(add grouping to Stay Plan) and Stay Plan page but
without the multiple user functionality.
Note:

20. How to
Validate?
e.g.: Validate that users plan their stay days/weeks before;
users keep a shortlist of places they want to stay, etc.
Pre-launch concept and usability test
To find new pain points and real world use.
Read customer feedback/complaints
In this case: Feature MAU, feature user retention, average
bookings (compared to non-feature user cohort), average
number of user invited to PlanBook.
Measure relevant metrics
To gather qualitative data and real world use.
Post-launch user interview

21. Thank You
Ade Harnusa Azril
adeharnusa@gmail.com
082117031130