Expedia Content

Expedia X Purdue University

Aims to integrate Expedia's services with social media platforms, particularly Instagram, to enhance travel inspiration and booking experiences.

Jump to Solution

Tori Jakpa

Ananya Desai

Damaris Adeniji

Ellie Starzak

Jennifer Du

Sean Levy

Jack Gerber

Jennifer Du

1 Senior UX Designer at Expedia

Interviewer

Secondary and Primary Researcher

UX Designer

Contextual Analysis

4 months

Figma

Miro

Figjam

Zoom

Slack

Get to know Expedia

Expedia Group (EG) is a leading travel agency that helps connect travelers with Expedia's partners. Their mission is to facilitate global travel for everyone.

Our design team was charged with exploring multiple approaches to integrate Expedia's lines of business (flights, hotel/vacation rentals, rental cars, activities) into different social media platforms. This could potentially provide additional options for planning and booking travel, while also increasing customer awareness for Expedia as a company.

By leveraging social media platforms, Expedia Group has an opportunity to inspire people to plan and book a variety of travel experiences.

User Group

This project and proposed solution aim to meet the needs of millennials proficient in using social media applications and who have the financial means to book travel experiences through Expedia. This user group was selected based on previous research conducted by the Expedia team, which found that millennials are the ideal target audience because they are the most educated generation in social media and have the financial resources required for vacations and holidays.

The Problem: The Frustration of Disconnected Inspiration

Imagine you're scrolling through Instagram, and suddenly, a friend's picture-perfect Parisian getaway pops up on your feed. The Eiffel Tower shimmers against the skyline, croissants beckon from a quaint café, and a spark of wanderlust ignites within you. But then what? Do you save the post for later, send it to a friend for inspiration, or simply continue scrolling, leaving that travel inspiration adrift in the digital void?

Let's paint a clearer picture of the travel planning and booking process as experienced through social media and Expedia. From insights gathered through secondary research, user studies, and interviews, we've crafted a scenario that reflects the journey of our target audience.

This scenario features a 28-year-old man named John who frequently uses social media, particularly Instagram, during his leisure time. He utilizes the platform to seek inspiration for potential travel destinations. However, he finds it difficult to trust influencers who promote their travel experiences, as he suspects that they are compensated for doing so.

Consequently, he disregards their posts and instead continues to browse until he comes across his brother's post. John trusts his brother more than the influencers he has seen, which prompts him to conduct further research on the location by using Google.

Due to people’s travel research being spread across multiple mediums/websites, it makes putting the trip together a hassle. Several of our interview participants mentioned they use their own digital documents or even physical paper to piece trips together. This makes collaboration difficult and also imposes challenges when plans change.

Goals

To help develop a relevant solution and address the various touch-points, our design team established the following objectives:

Enhance users' confidence in booking travel plans and experiences.
Foster customer loy alty to position Expedia as a dependable source for users.
Increase Expedia’s website traffic and bookings while driving revenue for Expedia

By setting these goals, our team aims to create a solution that not only benefits users but also helps Expedia grow its business and establish a stronger presence in the travel industry.

Research Process

The research findings indicate that users on Instagram prioritize unedited, original travel content that helps them imagine similar experiences (Parsi, 2021). Users value travel tips that focus on creating genuine experiences rather than serving influencer interests. Being able to inspire others to have similar experiences is highly appreciated. However, concerns about the authenticity of popular influencers prioritizing compensation over genuine travel advice, as expressed by users like John, are evident (Smith, 2019).

In summary, the research underscores the significance of original and authentic Instagram travel content. Overall, users' lack of trust in influencers may be related to the abundance of content and sources available online, as well as the search engine-friendly nature of social media.

To combat this, users may need to be more discerning about the sources they choose to follow, and influencers may need to be more transparent and authentic in their content. Additionally, search engines and social media platforms could consider ways to prioritize trustworthy content and promote more ethical and sustainable travel practices.

How did we go about it?

We decided to focus our proposed design solution on Instagram as the selected social media platform. Primary research conducted among the target audience showed that most of them heavily rely on Instagram when gathering travel inspiration. Moreover, from our research, we decided to target the part of the journey that addresses how users gather inspiration from posts shared by family and friends or others they follow on the platform. To support the inspiration gathering on Instagram, our team also explored how to create a feedback loop of people sharing their Expedia vacations so that the ecosystem could be built naturally.

To do this, we created a journey map (pictured below) to better understand the trip inspiration, planning, booking, and posting processes. From our research, we divided the user journey into 9 phases: ‘Inspiration’, ‘Research’, ‘Plan’, ‘Book’, ‘Track’, ‘Arriving’, ‘During’ (a trip’, ‘Return’, and ‘Posting Online’.

Bringing our ideas to life...

Solution

Our solution seamlessly bridges the gap between Instagram inspiration and travel bookings. Discover authentic Expedia experiences, save them to your Instagram trip board, and book directly from the post. Tag your adventures to earn rewards. Travel planning just got simpler and more rewarding.

Final Prototypes

Since the social media platform we decided to use was Instagram, we composed a feature that included Expedia tags within an Instagram post. A location tag will be visible on the post, just like an account tag.

When the tag is pressed, it will show the location of that event on a map. This map is already a feature in Instagram. Below the map, it will show some details of that event, such as the name of the event, the price, and some related Instagram posts.

It will also allow the user to visit the Expedia website, as well as add the event to their Expedia Trip Board.

The Expedia website will first come up as a pop-up webpage within Instagram, but if the user wants to visit the website in their browser app, they will be able to do that as well.

Uploading Travel Experiences

Our design allows users to seamlessly integrate their Expedia travel experiences into their social media posts. Users can select photos, apply filters, and then easily add Expedia tags to their posts, which are automatically detected from their Expedia account data. Each tag added earns the user points towards their Expedia account. Users can review and edit tags if needed, ensuring accuracy. This feature aims to make the process approachable and convenient, especially for users who have already booked trips through Expedia, offering them an easy way to earn points for future redemptions.

Users can press "Apply Now" to add tags to their listings, which will be displayed on the final screen before posting. They have the option to edit these tags after applying them. This button is visible regardless of whether the user's account is linked to Expedia, increasing awareness and providing a pathway for users to connect their accounts. This approach aims to streamline the process and make the feature discoverable, particularly for new members, by grouping it with similar functions like tagging other Instagram users.

Tagging Expedia listings will occur in the same location as tagging users, with similar interactions such as tapping to remove or add tags and swiping to switch pictures. Users confused about the tags can access more information by pressing the "Learn more" button, which directs them to a web page introducing Expedia tags.

This approach aligns Expedia tags with users' existing mental models of tagging and makes the process more familiar. It also addresses concerns about promoting another business by framing it as sharing travel experiences rather than endorsing a company for points. This integration leverages users' willingness to tag locations and people on Instagram.

Users can easily add Expedia listings to their photos by tapping on them and searching by name or browsing through synced trip boards from their Expedia account. Listings can only be added if their location matches the photo's geolocation data for accuracy, with ineligible listings grayed out. If attempted, an error popup appears. The "suggested" feature helps users find potential matches if they forget trip details.

This approach leverages Instagram's existing design system for adding music, facilitating seamless integration. Instagram would simply need to retrieve trip data from Expedia accounts, streamlining the process for both platforms.

Future Iterations & Takeaways

Integration with Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to make features accessible across platforms
Users can view travel posts, locate Expedia Trip Tags, and learn about events before adding them to their trip board.
Gathering user feedback through surveys and direct engagement to improve the trip board.
Developing a recommendation system for suggesting trip postings on Instagram, including lodging, activities, car rentals, and dining options.
Creation of a chat feature integrated into Expedia's website and app for efficient communication among families and groups of friends about travel plans.
Planning feature to better organize booked events, addressing user feedback regarding the ineffectiveness of using Google Docs or Microsoft Word for travel schedules.
- Aims to provide users with an easy and effective tool to control and change their travel ideas