How will you plan the launch of a travel product after the end of coronavirus?

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How will you plan the launch of a travel product after the end of coronavirus?

Asked at Airbnb over a year ago

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Debasis Dash · Answer 1 · 2021-09-11T17:39:27+0000

Clarification?

· Which travel product? You can choose.

· How do you define end of corona virus? You can do what ever you wanted like before

· Wo are we ? AirBnB

Is it a new product or extension of AirBnB? I will choose extension as that will require lesser cost and money given we operate in same market of travel.

· Business objective? Increase in Share of wallet and new customer acquisition

User:

International ravel

· Travel freak: Twice a year international traveler

· Frequent traveler: Once a yr internal traveler

· Occasional traveler: Once in 3 years international traveler

Domestic travel

We would choose travel freak due to bigger market opportunity

Pain points:

After corona virus ends, there will be a surge in activty that required public gathering but was banned.

· I have not been to theme parks since long time as it avoided gathering

· I have not been to new trekking

· I have not been to beaches

We will prioritize theme park as that is aligned to our objective of revenue and this is with bigger revenue potential.

Solution:

· Market place for booking of theme parks tickets.

· Select by country, city, theme, rating, age group, preference

· Show pictures, ride lists, testimonial and price

· GPS based navigation

· Booking of stay

· Individual ride booking option

· Information about each section

· Sale of merchandise

We will prioritize all but last tow in terms of ease and impact.

Pre-launch:

User: Known and mentioned above

Goal: Revenue and new customer acquisition

Competition & Differentiation: None except individual booking sites that does not provide options and special deals

Pricing: Commission from theme parks and add on merchandise (special dres, shoes, goggles, cap, food etc)

Geography: USA due to existing strong base in USA

Partnership:

· Theme parks for supply

· Travel booking agents for demand

· Travel guide sites for popularity

Launch:

· Social media Ads as international frequent travelers depends on online to plan their travel

· Volume discount to travel agents

· Discount for first 100 bookings to end customers

· Bundled offer with stay from AirBnB

· Discount for next purchase to increase repeat purchase

· Coupons embedded on travel guide

· Special discount with international banks

· Editorials on this new kind of product

Post Launch:

· New customers acquired

· Cost of customer acquisition

· NPS/CSAT rating

· Number of bookings

· APP page drop off (preference selection, detailed option, details on a particular option, payment page, ticket collected)

Repeat customers, time between two bookings

Average revenue per customer

Insights:

· Metrics to improve the customer experience and improve the product with bettercustomer experience that impacts revenue and acquisition in next release

· If succeeded, next campaign would be to get more users by reaching our to more people through all form of online paid campaigns (Google search, FB pad, SEO, In APP purchases) thoe are used by international travel freaks.

· Plan to expand to europe that might be next best adjecency in geography

· Plan for other avenues to provide bookings for events that is with less gathering but high value.

Hung Nguyen · Answer 2 · 2020-05-01T19:58:28+0000

Question: How will you plan the launch of a travel product after the end of coronavirus?

Clarify

What is the travel product (flight, hospitability, ...)? => Platform for booking flight
Which kind of flight will we focus on, domestic or international? => International
What is the stage of the product in its life cycle (Introduction, Growth, Maturity, Decline)? => Growth

Goal

Do we have any specific goal for this launch? Because we are in the Growth stage, I assume that the main goals are:
- Increase users to dominate the market.
- Utilize the high traveling demand after the pandemic is overcome

Strategy

Customer Segment: The target customer segment I think we should focus on is the business class who use planes to travel around the world to do the business. Because of coronavirus, everything is shutdowned and borders are closed. They have to postpone and cancel a lot of business trips. Therefore, after the pandemic is over, they have to fly a lot/
Partnership: I believe that the pandemic also hurts the Aviation, Hospitality, and other travel industries a lot, so it is a good opportunity for us to build a good relationship to be win-win.
Potential risks:
- Maybe there are some countries which are still closing borders.
- People are afraid to use airplanes because they are highly contagious in planes.
- Overwhelming flight traffic
- Peak usage
Metrics: I think we should measure some key metrics to keep track of user demands and market status.
- Acquisition:
  - # of reach from different sources => Control what is the most productive source
  - # of DAU, MAU, YAU
  - # of new users
- Activation:
  - Amount of time per booking
  - # of bookings daily, monthly, and annually
- Retention:
  - Booking per users
  - Average time between two bookings.
- Revenue:
  - Revenue per booking
  - Revenue per users

Plan
1. Pre-launch

Partnership:
- We can partner with Airline to offer a flexible schedule ticket for business customers.
- We can partner with Hospitality to offer customers accommodations while on a business trip.
- We can partner with transportation company to pick up at the airport
Marketing
- Focus on personal marketing => Reach out PA, HR, logistics, … who are in charge of booking flights for the company.
- Utilize channels that support for personal businesses
  - Telesale
  - Cold email
  - Welcome gift to introduce the product
KPI
- # of companies teams reach out
- # of partnerships (Airline, Hospitality, Transportation)
- # of countries are ready for reopening borders
- # of maximum numbers app/web can have

1. Launch

Partnership
- Keep in contact with Airline to update the change of schedule
- Update the real-time flight time to other services (transportation and hospitality)
- Partner with other in-airport service to support customers if their flights are delayed
Marketing
- People will have to spend a lot of hours in the plane, so I think we should focus on the MKT campaign like ads in magazines, airplane wifi, …
KPI
- Convert rate from acquisition to action > 50% => Because we are focusing on personalized marketing campaign so we need the high convert rate
- # of users
- # of booking per user
- $ per user
- $ per booking
- Average distance per booking
- Average time btw 2 booking

1. Post-launch

Measure Performance: Compare the metrics of data collected pre-launch and during launch to measure the performance.
Post Mortem: Determine what went well and what needs improvement.