Destination decision making – Escapemap, Inspirator, Inspiroscope, ExperienceFinder…

As we know, most consumers, when researching travel begin with having to decide between one destination and another. This decision could be at country level, region level or sometimes city level. Once an acceptable destination has been “chosen” (and it could be several on a consumers shortlist) consumers may start to undertake product searches on specific dates – to find relevant product and check that the destination could be acceptable for their travelling companions.

The strategy is that if you can capture users when they are in this ”research mode” then, if you can put product in front of them, they may, when ready to purchase, come back to your website to conclude the transaction. That is the theory anyway.

Large OTAs (Online Travel Agents) are now getting into this “destination decision assistance” space (along with many other travel research centric websites)…..

Travelocity: ExperienceFinder – Not launched…. still in research and development phase. A flash based system for choosing between destinations and selecting experiences within those destinations. Incorporates video, audio, images, wishlist, lead in prices, community reviews etc. Perhaps they have “over extended” themselves as this project looks massive – which is probably why they haven’t got it fully live yet. It is a “must see” website though….and the kind of website that if you show your management team – they will say “I want it like that”.

Expedia: Now have two tools to inspire you.

Inspirator: A “wizard” type tool that takes you through a succession of HTML pages asking you a few “leading questions”. After your answers have been analysed they come up with a few suggestions such as below. This used to be their primary “destination decision assistance” tool – but they have recently introduced a new tool – the Inspiroscope.

Inspiroscope: A flash based system with a moving tag cloud of words like “Beach” or “good wine” etc…. Click on a word and see, after some 70s retro design (based on the kaleidoscope principle), 5 cities / destinations that may inspire you. Has some really annoying sounds! This tool is interesting to play with for a few minutes – but doesn’t have the depth of information as the other tools have – and the links from the destination ideas don’t take you to further information naturally – but to product. That seems a bit disjointed to me.

I don’t expect this one to stay on the Expedia homepage for too long if it is designed in its current form. Perhaps it was never intended to replace their Inspirator – and is just there for a forthcoming marketing campaign.

Opodo: EscapeMap - An AJAX mashup between their special offers and Google Maps. Has the advantage that the offers relate to the departure airport that you wish….. (rather than being generic for all customers). This is slightly more down the “show them product as soon as you can” route rather than being a pure “destination vs destination” decision tool. I like it.

Analysis
Firstly what is interesting about these tools is that, apart from an “old” one from Expedia, they are built using latest web technologies (OK – flash is hardly “latest”, nor is AJAX, but it is compared to most other OTA travel websites which are mainly, navigation wise, HTML)

Secondly, these tools are more interesting (to me) that plain old “flat text” destination guides. However, as previously discussed in this blog, these are much more complex than flat text and require a greater understanding of the consumer than just publishing text. I am not sure that the “average designer” understands online travel consumer behaviour sufficiently to innovate in this space….

API and data exposure
Ooops! Oh dear. Both Opodo and Expedia have managed to expose their data to the world via these tools.

As previously written, Opodo have exposed their special offer API (see example XML response) – which means that 3rd parties can come in and take this data without any screen scraping.

Now, Expedia have gone one step further! The data that supports their tag clouds is nicely held within a public XML file. Within the file they have all the words – and the previous number of votes that word is currently receiving. Here is some brief analysis

• Beach – 2019
• Interesting places – 1438
• Good weather – 1436
• Beautiful scenery – 1325
• Hot weather – 1058
• New experiences – 827
• Good hotel – 609
• Relaxed atmosphere – 566
• Culture – 551
• Lazy days – 530
• Beautiful sunsets – 524
• Nice accommodation – 495
• Relaxing – 470
• Getting a tan – 413
• Far and away – 384
• Adventure – 358
• Swimming – 337
• Beer – 336
• Sand – 334
• Eating out – 321
• Good food – 311
• Sea – 265
• Local markets – 265
• Architecture – 255
• Cocktails – 247
• Entertainment – 242
• Friendly locals – 235
• Ice Cream – 234
• Blue sky – 230
• Rest – 225
• Watersports – 213
• Meeting people – 210
• Archaeology – 209
• Excursions – 208
• Socialising – 204
• A good book – 200
• Snorkelling – 194
• Good wine – 189
• Fresh air – 185
• Bars – 183
• Kids clubs – 154
• Nice pool – 151
• Boat trips – 146
• Diving – 121
• Museums – 108
• Friends – 78
• Friendly staff – 50
• Theatre – 49

This list is slightly “self reinforcing” because the more votes a keyword has, the larger the size within the tag cloud, hence more votes. However it does give an interesting insight into the mindset of Expedia customers. This is the kind of insight that Expedia really, through better code execution, should be keeping to themselves.

Incidentally, I notice that food has “good food”, wine has “good wine” – but beer is just beer. Don’t beer drinkers care about it being good? Ah – no – remember this is for the UK marketplace.

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