Reimagining a Best-in-Class Travel App
Industry: Travel & Hospitality
Project: Client Project at Kellogg - 2021
Role: Design Strategist
Teammates: Deanna Mostowfi, Mayukh Sen, Michelle Syu, Takaya Sugino
Skills: Customer Interviews, Focus Groups, Customer Journey Mapping, Insight Generation, Business Modeling
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the travel and hospitality industries to rethink how to best engage with their customers, placing particular emphasis on the use of technology. Our client, a global hotel chain, asked us to help them reimagine the digital guest journey to drive app engagement and longterm customer loyalty.
Research
Secondary Research
Conducted secondary research looking at the hospitality industry and analogous industries that have loyalty programs and/or highly rated applications and features.
1:1 Interviews & Focus Groups
Conducted 15 ethnographic interviews with diverse participants representing diverse customer segments and also facilitated a focus group with 5 individuals.
Design
Insight Generation
Identified key theme of "care" from research and generated insights about modes of behavior and key motivators: travelers want to feel cared for and seek both fairness and recognition from their hotel.
Rapid Prototyping
Brainstormed possible features and offerings and sketched out storyboards to illustrate the customer journey for both a solo and family traveler.
Build
Business Model & Feasibility
Developed business model canvass and high level feasibility roadmap to assess the required partnerships, capabilities, and financial and human capital required for new concept.
Personal Key Takeaways: The importance of looking at the data from different lenses (e.g., values, modes of behavior, pain points, etc.). Also, if time and budget had allowed, we would have benefited from doing additional concept testing and validation with customers, especially within our different customer segments.