The document outlines a travel product concept aimed at young travelers aged 18-34, who leverage social media and mobile technology to shape their travel experiences. It identifies their desire for contextual and relevant information throughout their journeys, emphasizing the importance of creating a seamless travel planning platform called 'Travelmate.' The platform intends to facilitate planning, sharing, and connecting with others during travel, ultimately enhancing the overall travel experience.

1. Travel Product
Initial product concept document
May, 2012

2. Part - I

3. Contents
/Overview
/Understanding users & scenarios
/ Starting point
/ First look
/ Retracing the path
/Building the experience ecosystem
/ Identifying user needs
/ Principle of our approach
/Mapping the platform to the journey
/What is the proposition
/Design your travel experience
/Creating the experience ecosystem

4. Note
The solution mix is loosely based on the target market of UK

5. Overview
Growth of Social media and mobile devices
have changed the way we live, dine and
communicate with each other. Young
people are at the fore front of these
change equipped with smart phones,
connected with opinioned people and fully
aware of their needs.
All of these are changing the face of travel
industry like never before. With GPRS and
wi-fi connectivity travelers expect
contextual and relevant information along
every step of their journey. Young travelers
now expect information that is both
location contextual and relevant to their
timely needs.
Every key purchase is heavily researched,
considered, reviewed and bounced off for
opinions. Every memory is shared and
celebrated. They may not appear to be sure
of where they want to go but they are very
sure about how they want to feel.
They are more inclined to engage with the
local culture and activities on offer that the
price. And above all perception about
quality of services are influenced more by
the intangibles that the tangibles and they
are willing to pay more given the right mix
of rational and emotional reasons.
Let take the walk.

6. Understanding users & scenarios

7. Starting Point
Understand who are these young travellers? What are their motivations? What
needs they have during the course of their journey
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Potential
Employee
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Peer review
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Traveler

8. •
•
First let’s look at the
target demographic…
More than 70% of young traveller aged between 18-34
access travel information on their mobile devices when
travelling
More than 40% of the users rely on friends / relative
recommendations during the process of making travel
purchases
•
On average, the users who use search and purchase on
average searched 55 times
•
Nearly half of purchasers bought two or more travel
products
•
67% of those that booked accommodation visited Map
sites beforehand
•
The young audience eagerly want information related
to local etiquette and customs and it ranked as top
three type of content

9. Retracing the path
Does it make life easier and is it fulfilling. A close look at the possible opportunities
Age
Occupation
>>
28
the journey
starts here
Manager – sales
At home, planning
for her next
vacation.
Organization Standard Chartered
the user who use search and purchase on
average searched 55 times – lack of content
>>
Come across ‘Liked’
article by Vir Sanghvi
Put together visual stories and post online
Keep posting random
photos & thoughts
>>
Search Udaipur
“If only I could collate all these in one place”
Want to start aggregating
• to do list
• Places to visit
• bookmark resource
• look for local event
• Local language
/etiquette
Started gathering clues and
nuances of Indian culture
Looks for deals and book
tickets & hotel
>>
>>
“He looks like an connoisseur on
Indian Culture”

10. Building the experience ecosystem

11. Identify the user needs
Evolve an ecosystem of experience around the unanswered need of the user
offers
event
hotspots
travel
stay
local
logistics
local
services
culture
social
emotional
connect
feedback
visual
story

12. Principles of our approach
•
•
•
•
Identify the motivation and provide guidance to plan and build enthusiasm
around the travel experience
Keep updating with local information, events, offers and customs; building
context to location and time of the day
Provide tool to connect to circle of friends, fellow traveler and connect with
people having experience and interest in chosen location and culture
Detail out the digital experience for the brand, focus on the aspect of experience
that will differentiate it.

13. Mapping the platform to the journey
Design a platform that is an aggregate of services and content that deliver value across the prestay, stay and post stay phase. Evolve an ecosystem of experience around the existing booking
engine.
Pre-Travel
Post-Travel
Travel
Travel Begins
Travel Ends
Make available crowd sourced views,
experiences, reviews on location
Provide tools to plan,
document and share
Curate content cluster around
interest areas & locations to
guide decision making
Locate
the trigger
Identify the motivation

14. What is the proposition >>
travelmate
Make planning easy a seamless experience
Deliver the experience by building connection and context
Travelmate as a platform will have a ubiquitous presence across devices and respond to
the mobility and contextual need of travelers.
Travelmate will be a tool for user to design the travel experience they are looking for,
refine it with collective experience, invite people to join and finally share the actual
travel experience. From the possible list of content channel, services and tools users
can configure to a specific number that can be availed on the mobile interface. It will
broadcast periodic content capsules that would be contextual to location, phase of
travel and time of day.

15. Design your travel Experience
Refine it with collective experience
User then share his travel story with the larger
community, who can come and add, comment
and suggest changes to the itinerary or make
multiple tours guides
Look for companions
Food
Travel
Cultural events
Food
User can look for people with similar interest, intersecting
travel plan or 0ther companions – and extend invites to
them to become co traveler either for the entire duration
or for sessions. User can plan such session on map and
share the same with other companions. During the course
of travel each companion can track each other on the
map, communicate, share and create a visual gallery of his
experience.
Create your travel experience
User create the travel experience he wants selecting either the mood or places / dates / mode
of travel– and use available graphics, photos,
content & videos. It like the story he / she want to
live during his travel.
Share the world you experienced
User can start sharing the experiences and
stories that he was part of or helped create..
Other users can draw from this world to design
better travel experiences

16. Post Travel
Provide the content and tools contextual to users’ need that make the travel research, planning and
documenting memories a seamless experience.
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Now
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Now
offers
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Pre-Travel
Travel
Local
offers
Curated content
Need mapping
Context mapping
Aggregation of user content
Curators
Cultural gurus
Tools
Local content (language / etiquette)

17. On the move
Local cultural events
Local culture etiquette
Local offers
Airline updates
User content – photo, opinions, videos
Twitter – local trends
Weather
User can configure a limited number of channels from the given channels – and
will start receiving content updates on the mobile just from the time travel is
planned. The mobile interface would provide
• Guided map for local travel, walks, landmarks and other cultural hotspot
• Locate people with similar interest in the near vicinity
• Locate your circle of friends in the near vicinity & send them alerts
• Look up local offers and purchase the same through your mobile wallet

18. Good
Fresh
Enriched
How do you want to feel
after your travel?
Quick Thoughts









The platform let user identify what he / she looking for in the holiday and
then connect him / her with relevant content, people and tools to help
shape up the mood
User can setup the account only through laptops, iPad and desktops.
Account setup requires the users to pull in the FB and twitter ‘following’
friends.
Users can set dates for the travel mood, which starts much before the
actual travel dates and may extend to well beyond when the travel ends
User can fill in travel plan – airline, hotel booking, car rental and other
itinerary
Look up people who are traveling same destination
The mobile application will configure itself in the destination time zone,
reporting on weather, local news trends and regular content capsules on
language, etiquette, weather, offers and cultural events in and around
the location.
It will use crowd intelligence to put forward local knowledge, events or
contextual activities that users can possibly indulge in
Each cultural cluster can have a mentor or a guru, who can help users
organize the travel to maximize cultural experience
User can start aggregating and tagging content and images that are
contextual to his place of interest.

19. Creating the ‘Experience’ ecosystem
Make it People Centric
Simplify
Be the wireless web
Take a user-centered
design approach, look
beyond the project,
beyond the interaction,
beyond the screen. The
attempt would be to try
and understand the mindset of the users, when
they interacts with our
solution, how he got
there and what the
motivation is.
Make the solution users
friendly and natural. Make
accomplishment of each
task and fulfillment of
each need a journey with
minimal glitches and
effortless. Minimize
surprises and keep the
user informed at every
stage of the journey.
User are no longer sitting
on their desktop, they are
everywhere else. Let’s
embrace the ‘fragmented’
web and drive brand
experiences to where the
customers are.
Make the experience
interactive & intuitive
The experience should be
rooted in business
objectives, to make
interaction an engagement
with the brand. Let’s have
a clear strategy to focus on
creating interactions that
fulfil the brand promise
rather than invest in
technology that un-usable.

20. Part - II

21. Contents
/Persona
/Journey
/Scenario-I
/Scenario-II

22. Context
Michael been using the current booking engine for last two years and though generally satisfied; he finds
its limiting.
Now powered by his smart phone, he is looking to plan for his next big vacation in India after a gap of two
years. And he is looking for a platform that can help his plan, create, share and stay connected during his
long awaited holiday and wonders, “is there a single platform which can stays with me during the entire
journey; guiding and creating meaningful connection to make this holiday an experience to remember”.
He is willing to devote time to search and plan and is committed to make sure he finds the right
relationship.
The Role of the Internet & mobile
Michael Phelps
Age: 32 years
 Web savvy, UK based business
process manager
 Travel goals: Looking to take a
vacation after two years that can
let him experience a new culture.
 Have saved enough to plan
comfortably
 Internet usage: Heavy, use his iPad
and mobile to researches
everything before making a first
move
Michael takes his research directly to the Web regardless of if he is in office, at home or on the move in
the market. He’s constantly using Google and Facebook to quickly reference topics that come up in
conversations with his peers. He is aware of the big players, such as Expedia and Lonely Planet. However,
he doesn’t really know if any of them offers completely what he is looking for. But he has got one wordof-mouth suggestion, Travelmate. He turns to the web and starts looking for sites and apps and visit
Travelmate.
Challenges and Pain Points
How travel sites or even the new travel apps present themselves online isn’t always consistent with who
they really are. He has to visit multiple sites for researching, planning, booking and sharing. He also gets
lost on sites that are cluttered with information but cannot help plan the journey. He wants to start with a
platform that understands his unique needs and will stay with him though out the entire journey.
The Bottom Line
•
•
He wants something that can help him leverage crowd intelligence for planning.
He wants to go along with a platform that helps him create, connect, share his travel story;
something that he can trust and turn to during the course of his journey.
Perceptions
•
•
“This holiday should be different as the world is now more connected and mobile.”
“I need a digital companion that can understand my travel needs and helps me with suggestion and
create connections.”

23. Journey – Travelmate
Trigger
Research
Share
& Seek
Compare
& Choose
Finalize
Travel Exp
PRE-TRAVEL: Evaluate & Plan the travel ‘Exp’
Turns to the
Web to
research travel
experiences
driven by a
trigger and
driven by
motivations
Does initial
research;
looking to see
what the
experience
could be;
burrowing and
learning from
other
experiences
Book mark
content, places,
people and
experiences.
Shares his travel
journey and story
with his circle of
friends,
influencers and
mentors.
Finally putting in
place the travel
experience/s that Invite opinions
he want to relive and suggestion to
or create.
fine tune the plan
and experiences
before finalizing
the itinerary.
Scenario I
Receive
Update
Connect
Look
Share
TRAVEL – Live THE story and Engage
Finalize the
travel plan,
experience and
people with
whom he want
to undertake
the journey
Receive Update
on local culture
weather, offers ,
events, culture
Connect with
people with
similar interest,
with co-travelers
and with stories
that are being
told
Look up people,
place, activity and
food of interest
and in near
vicinity.
Look for
guidance to
move around
(maps) and to
mingle (local
customs,
etiquette and
language)
Scenario II
Compile
Share
& Invite
POST-Travel: Share Exp
Share opinion on
stories being told.
Share snippets of
his own
experiences
Compile his
travel story and
experiences
Shares
experience
with
colleagues/
friends

24. Scenario
Michael has decided to plan his next vacation with TravelMate.
He has set up his account and it is the second time he has logged in the web
interface of the TravelMate. He is enjoying the discoveries and is in the process
of setting up his travel plans.
experiences
stories

25. Messages
5
Notification 2
Go Live | Connect | Explore | Around Me | Travel Itinerary
B
A
Explore travel experiences by
Ghamma Ghadi
Popular Now
location
C
All
Stories
Interest
Or search by keyword
Channels
A
User is greeted in the local
language of the location he has
select for his travel plan
B
The sleek banner would contain
a thematic image in an attempt
to capture the essence of the
culture
C
‘Popular now’ is a live feed of
the different stories, channels
and people that user has
selected to follow.
D
TravelMate suggestions based
on some activity metrics and
peer recognition.
e.g. Carribean beach, virgin forest
gO!
India +
Yoga +
Mariyam
Udaipur +
Shelly
Kenny
Culture +
Mariyam
Yoga +
Mariyam
Yoga +
Mariyam
Michael Phelps
Casual Traveler
Your upcoming travel
Food +
Dance +
Mariyam
Culture +
Mariyam
Mariyam
Food +
Mariyam
Yoga +
Mariyam
Udaipur, India
Date: 2nd July, 2012
Life +
Mariyam
5 Channels, 18 Mates
Your TravelMates online
D Traveler you
#1
may like
View all
Udaipur stories today
#4
Daniel Kerr
215 followers
215 followers
follow
follow
#2
#4
Chris Bell
215 followers
215 followers
355 reviews
follow
follow
#4
Karan Kapoor
215 followers
215 followers
follow
follow
Company
TravelMate
Terms of use
Organization
Team
Contact
Feedback
Go Live
Connect
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Around me
Travel Itinerary
Privacy Policy
Terms & Condition
Disclaimer
© 2012 TravelMate. All rights reserved
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26. Scenario
Michael has started living his travelled, he has so meticulously planned.
He reached last night, and is up early and looking to plan the day. He reached
out to his iPhone, and starts TravelMate to explore what Udaipur has to offer.
He got interested in the dance event scheduled for the coming evening.
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30. Thank You
Nazim Iqbal
email: nazim.iqbal@gmail.com
mob: +91-981830313
http://about.me/nazimiqbal