Research and idea proposal for a new travel app

Proposal Abstract My project is a travel app focused on giving the customer the best experience when booking a trip, this is achieved by using the budget as the main source when handing the information to the customer. Then, they’ll have the power to make their booking within the app and also build their travel itineraries. The app is going to have all the information needed in order to save time and avoid trying to find the information in multiple sites. I chose this project because traveling has always been one of my passions and I love planning itineraries either for me or friends and family. Finding what best suits everyone is always a challenge that I’m willing to take. They don’t share this same experience, as for them it requires lots of work and time. My goal is that this app becomes one of people’s first thoughts when thinking about travel planning and exploring, since it’s focused on making the experience as rewarding and easy as possible. My app addresses problems of time-consuming searches for reliable information, prices that adjust to your budget, and activities that best relate to you and your trip. It makes easier to find for flight, hotel, sightseeing, transportation and restaurants all calculated based on your budget. Also, lets you organize your trip on the app to have access to your itinerary your whole trip. For the adventurers, just type in your budget and find new destinations possible with your amount. I plan to do it with a team of app developers and doing extensive research to make sure it succeeds with the current market. It accomplishes the main purpose that is to design your trip based on your travel budget, while also saving time and having access to real-time information. Customers can design their trips to please their preferences with the available tools for customization and can enjoy their trips with the certainty that they found what suited them the most. The main goal achieved is to have options for everyone with the best recommendations to make your trip planning something you’ll look forward to every single time. Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Project Idea My project idea consists of a travel app that gives you everything you need based on your travel budget. Everyone has a considered budget when traveling that you try your best to maintain, so with this app the idea is that first of all you type your budget and the app itself will recommend places that you can go with the budget, including hotels, restaurant options and sightseeing. This can benefit both people who are looking for a particular destination or ones willing to explore new ones, as recommendations pop up based on the current budget. It’ll have information about plane tickets, hotels, an estimate on food per person, free activities of the places and also paid tours. The option of adding new experiences to your trip when you spend a little more will also be recommended. It will also be sending alerts when the overall budget of a place you want to visit changes, for example, “Your trip to “x” usually costs “x” but right now is “x”. The purpose of this is for people to have all the possible information they need in one app, basically your own trip/itinerary planner, while also getting the best deals and new recommendations of places you wouldn’t have thought of visiting before. 1.2 Aims and Goals We can spend hours and hours looking for information when planning our trip, this app would not only be a time saver, but a great option for exploring new places. The aim with this is that you no longer have to go to a hundred different sites, looking for the best deals. You’ll have real time information about prices, places and any changes that might occur, all available to book within the app. The goal is that people can visit their favorite places already knowing what to expect and have the possibility to meet new places they wouldn’t have considered before. The idea of first placing your budget is what makes it exciting, because there are a lot of possibilities available just by this. 1.3 Motivation My interest in this comes from my love of doing itineraries for my trips. Usually I not only make my own itineraries, but also for my friends and family. They have always said how it frustrates them or how they don’t have time to look for anything, so I take on the role and research for places, plane tickets, and hotels / Airbnb’s. At the end of my research I just tell them how much money it is and give them different options based on the amount of days or different types of accommodation. It motivates me to always find the best deal possible, while also discovering new places and working with a budget also allows you to travel more than once a year. There are a lot of options online, which can make it an exhausting thing to research, so that’s why this app would make it way easier for everyone.

Chapter 2: Background

2.1 Literature Review

Traveling is one the most rewarding experiences in our lives. Not only do we get to meet beautiful and new places, but also, we learn a lot about history and culture. For some people the task of finding all the information can be tricky since there’s a lot of it online. Sometimes they rely on popular sites such as Expedia, that you can book both plane tickets and hotels, but they have to do every other search by themselves. Finding the right price for everything is very challenging. We always want the best price for what you’re getting, so we always develop our own budgets that we, most definitely, are going to try out best to stick with it.

There’s a lot of trip planning websites and budget controlling apps, but when it comes to an app focused on designing your trip based on your budget is not a popular thing among from what I found. There are some options in some websites and apps, but not developed to exactly to my purpose. Many of the websites and apps are focused on finding your trip information based on your next destination and most of the times you end up doing things manually.

Based on my research and people’s reviews, there’s three websites and apps that do similar functions as my idea, but fail in some areas:

TripHob – Website / App

Advantages: Lets you create a trip plan with your budget.

Disadvantages: You can’t edit your itinerary once you’ve picked it, doesn’t update activities, if you have purchased a plane ticket or hotel elsewhere you can’t import your information, complicated interface, lack of languages, offline not working, app crashes, itinerary options are very limited.

Kayak – Website / App

Advantages: Suggests places, plane tickets and hotels based on budget.

Disadvantages: Shares your information with Facebook without telling you, real prices vary when booking flights and hotels, not enough descriptions, doesn’t show all the flights available, doesn’t recommend restaurants just an estimate of what you’re spending, doesn’t advertise this budget feature.

TripAdvisor – Website / App

Advantages: Stores all information on flights, hotels, restaurants and experiences in one place, with customer reviews.

Disadvantages: No options to choose overall budget, no recommendations based on budget, no customization based on interests, no alert system when prices are lower, doesn’t create your itinerary.

Most of apps are focused in recommending to general masses without the personalization option, which is key for pleasing every individual visiting your platform. Not everyone has the same preferences in food/sightseeing, so giving out filters is important for finding the type of information you’re looking for. I see this is lacking in most apps, even the ones focused on a single target. When I think about a way to design a trip exactly to what my interests are, I find that there’s no other way to do it other than manually and reading carefully what benefits you, so I want to be able to share an option for people for them to create their own taking everything into consideration.

Building a respectable trustworthy audience is also important, that’s why giving out real information is a must. When doing the exercise and trying out various apps, you’ll see changes in the information they’ve given you, especially flights, they’re usually way more expensive, which makes the information given to your budget inconclusive. It’s important to be up to date with the changes in algorithms and recommend cheaper days as well.

“Key market application for tourists will be the ability to individualize and personalize travel plans, reduce time for its creation and adapt tourism services to themselves, not the other way around. Key market application for tourism services providers will be unique marketing and sales channel. With tourists providing input of their interests, system will provide matching of these interests to service providers’ offerings. Providers will thus (1) receive direct demands, suited to their offer, and also (2) be able to adapt to the demand (based on automated empirically validated big data of the input interests) to be competitive in future.” (Kleindienst, no date)

My project will be introducing the ability to make your travel planning experience as smooth and easy as possible using your budget as the main goal to book everything you need in your trip in one place. Using all the tools possible, it will feature real prices and real information to avoid confusion and recurring to other platforms, which is what I’m trying to make easier. Apart from this, it will give alerts when your budget for the overall trip changes and the possibility to book with the best price available. Using this type of app customization is key, because it builds experiences for every type of traveler and you get to build your trip based on your preferences. With everything you need from flights and hotels to sightseeing, food and transportation, it will make your itinerary planning unique and faster than ever.

Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1 Survey and Brainstorming session

After reviewing the survey results, it’s clear that:

1) People do enjoy traveling – 100% of participants.

2) Most of them create itineraries previous to their trips – 76% of participants.

3) Most of them have a specific budget for their trips – 83% of participants.

4) Most usually go over budget – 69% of participants.

5) Most agreed they would benefit from an app to plan based to budget – 97% of participants.

As seen on the survey, people have different interests, with this app having more recommendations based on your trip preferences it creates the ability to carry on with it exactly as you had planned it from the beginning.

Based on the feedback, it will be presented in the brainstorming session as it is at the moment.

Introducing the brainstorming session, I talked about my idea and what the app would include. My introductory statement was “Good afternoon, today I’ll be sharing the idea for a new travel app. It consists of an app where you can book your whole travel itinerary according to your budget and at the same time, have all the available information of your trip with you. There will be information about flights, hotels, restaurants, sightseeing and transportation. People will have the choice to find the information that best suits them with customization tools for their trip and will be able to save either their itinerary for an upcoming trip or one they have in mind for the future so they can receive alerts when the prices change (if they do). The explore section will have the option to insert your budget and discover new destinations in that price range. This benefits people who are traveling for the first time or experienced travelers looking for their next adventure”. It was conducted in a classroom at Griffith College, with 4 of my college colleagues.

After my introductory statement I got a few questions regarding what the app is able to do. First, if it had a minimum budget, for example, you can’t travel with €5. Second, if it’s only a platform for itineraries or you could book flights, hotels, etc. within the app. Third, if there’s a tool to customize the itinerary, for example, “for €50 more, you can visit “x”” and it’ll be added to the existing itinerary. Lastly, to explain further how exactly the budget tool worked. The app will have all of the things mentioned in the questions, then my response was that depending on where your country of departure is it changes the minimum, since it’s not the same to travel internationally as to travel within Europe. It will have the option to book everything within the app or export your information of things you already bought somewhere else, depends on the person and what you want to get. Recommendations on spending a little more to have a better experience is always a good thing to have, sometimes you’re willing to spend more for something better, so it’s a great thing to incorporate. The budget tool works in to different ways, you either pick a destination and insert your budget or insert a budget and pick a destination at random, this helps discover new places you might have not thought about or destinations you didn’t know were affordable.

The main theme that came out about it is the complexity of the app itself and how is all the information going to be available. I agree, it is a complex app with lots of information, but it’s also a mix of tools that are already available, just set up in a new platform in order to save time. Using different analytics and algorithms is possible, just as the information is possible and available in other platforms.

Secondly, the other theme that came out of it was how is the app going to perform better than the existing ones. Sometimes when looking for information, you find different sources with different information in every source. The idea is to provide real and current information in every category, all in one place. Making up our minds is challenging, especially when having to pick from different sources. Multitasking comes in handy for most situations, this is what the app will let you do, have all your information available all in one place. As for performance, it’s important to maintain a clean design, where you can access what you need without confusion or the risk of picking something that you didn’t intend to. With the customization tool, it’ll make the information accessible and easier to find.

Based on the themes and questions raised after the brainstorming, it is clear that I have to add features to the initial idea and be more specific when presenting the idea in further meetings. The initial idea didn’t change, as of right now, it was approved. I will add features and disclaimers to be specific with the information I’m providing to the user and making sure to include minimum recommended budgets per destination.

3.2 Project and Research Development

Researching how the existing platforms work helped me realize the tools needed to develop my project. The most important thing for product development is having the team with you, for an app, you need a Project manager, Programmer, UI/UX designer and QA engineer. After, you need to pick which tools your app is having. Mine needs, user login, push notifications, media content, geolocation, google maps integration, ads, in-app purchases, payment integration, synchronization between devices, multi-language support, offline mode, database, customization, search, data encryption, and the app maintenance. These all have different costs and times to develop into your app. In mobile app development design implies aspects like visual design, user interfaces and UX, logos, icons, branding, wireframes, etc. All of these are necessary and will be considered when asking for the fund budget.

On the other hand, the most important part of building a product is data gathering and analysis, since it’s your reassurance that your product is going to work. A key step in the planning of research is to be clear about its purpose, for this, it’s important to do those that can gather the most information related to your topic. For my project, surveys are a great way of data collection, since they are easy to reach worldwide. You can promote one and it’ll be available for people all over the world to respond. Checking written sources and previous studies available helps if what it’s available matches your product, most likely someone already did a demographics research by country to see which countries use these resources when planning their trips. Personal interviews mixed with questionnaire questions can come handy when you do them to people from different backgrounds, so you get the broader opinion. It’s important to consider when doing my research to be able to detect biased opinions, these could be from having bad experiences with previous services or not being able to understand technology fully.

To develop this project, I will divide it in Research, Data Gathering & Analysis, Team Building, Business Plan, Funds, Partnership, Product Development and Product Release. In order to secure the success of the app, it’s important to have all the data available with the funds also to start building the project. *GANTT Schedule in appendix.

3.3 Business plan

Traveling is one of the biggest industries simply because is in almost everyone’s desires and plans. Every day it becomes more and more technological, since all possible information is online. As we develop new technologies, there are also thoughts on incorporating them into this market. When developing this new idea, I focused it on a need we all experience when traveling, and that is finding all the available information for your trip and itinerary in one place based of the amount of money you’re spending for your overall trip. This fits into this demanding market because it’s a new channel for your company to be with the reassurance that it will be seen by many people with similar budgets. For the consumers it’s a new and quick way for trip planning without the concern of going over budget and time badly invested.

By also being one of the biggest industries, that means there’s a lot of similar competitors and well stablished companies pleasing their customers. My direct competition would be the popular website and app, Kayak. Their main goal is to help travelers get their information and best deals in flights, hotels and cars. Despite advertising themselves mainly as this, not a lot of people know there’s an option for budget searching within their service. What makes them direct competitors is that they gather all the information in one main channel, without charging extra fees when booking, and also having the budget engine search for flights and hotels or overall trip, while also being one of the most recognized companies.

Another important competitor is TripAdvisor, although it lacks the budget plan, it does have recommendations on restaurants and sightseeing/experiences combined with flights and hotel search engines. What makes it trustworthy is that it has thousands of customer reviews of places, airlines, hotels and experiences. When thinking about searching things to do, it’s a great tool for itinerary planning as it describes them in detail with the cost.

My product offers something different than the competition because it will be advertised in a different way and will have customization engines and other types of information not available on Kayak’s or TripAdvisor’s overall product. What other companies are lacking and people still demand is somewhere where you can plan your trip without recurring to more than two websites or apps and still find all the information you’re looking for. With the budget tool for your whole trip it makes it easier for the consumer to build an itinerary within the app because it can narrow down all the information to fill that particular gap. For the adventurers, recommendations on new destinations will be available when typing in your budget. Working with a budget makes it easier to recommend restaurants and sightseeing and when you mix it with your preferences it becomes an easier experience to build and save your itinerary.

The target for my product is people from 18 – 55 who are interested in traveling, finding new destinations, and likely to organize their trips before traveling. Although its focused on everyone, people from the countries most ranked as travelers will get priority as they are most likely to use the app. With unique features and an existing demand people were not aware of, the app will begin to catch the eye of experienced and unexperienced travelers looking to make their lives easier and save time while planning ahead their next trip.

Sales and Marketing plan

My product benefits the costumer and is different from the competition because it saves a lot of time and you’ll have all the information available with you at all times. Not only do you get to plan out everything in one place, but you can arrange it to what best suits you and have it as your personal itinerary. Although there’s similar platforms, mine combines what everybody likes about the other ones to create a unique way to find everything you need and plan ahead.

Firstly, I intend the app to be free, but all the features won’t be available. The free version will include the ability to find everything, but you won’t have anything saved within the app to have your itinerary available. The “plus” version of the app will include your itinerary plan that you can customize to your liking and it will be “ad free”. Since all my competitors have free services, I researched how they got their income and they charge by “click”, ads and sponsorships. When a hotel, airline or restaurants advertises on your platform, they get recommended first and it’s most likely that your customers are going to run into it first. Ads are a very essential source of income for a lot of platforms today, so it’s great to include it as one too. The paid version of the app will cost €2.99 and will include all the features and exclusive deals only available when you pay for it. It’s clear that it can’t be priced too high because after all getting information and organizing is free, the problem is the time consumed and finding the best deal.

Since it’s an app, the main marketing will be done through social media, targeted on people who follow travel accounts, travel influencers / photographers and people who’ve travelled before. Advertised mainly on Instagram and Pinterest, who I think are the strongest social medias for traveling info and pictures. The main campaign will offer the people who click on the ads the app free for 1 month, for regular app downloads it’ll be available for free for 14 days. This will encourage people to try it out with all the features and get the best out of it.

My main strategy for the business to succeed is to have an attractive, easy to interact with, and well-designed app, with great rewards and deals when you’re a member; It’s important to be constant with the delivery of information, always have to be up to date; Keeping the app on the loop so new travelers can take advantage of it and be aware that it exists; Building up with new allies like restaurants or hotels willing to recommend and put your services with special offers (for example codes with one month free, discounts, etc.). I’m going to create my app starting with a design plan, focusing it on good and fast navigation, easy to find information and good purchase options with credit cards and PayPal.

Financial plan

To fund my app, I will ask for back credit with a personal loan, which I’ll invest around 80% of it in different ways, also have a partnership with a company so I can launch the app hand in hand with them. Firstly, it’ll be invested to the team helping me create it, secondly the maintenance costs, and thirdly a portion for the initial marketing strategy. When partnering with a company they can either buy your idea or you do it together and split earnings, which is a good option if you don’t have any means to start on your own.

My timeline to create it would be after I finish with all my college work and classes. Starting up with the market study, gathering all the data possible of people that would be interested in my product. After that building the team to create it and talk to different business associates who are willing to develop the app along with me. Lastly, talking to the bank and letting them know the fees and how much I need, wait for them to offer a good bank credit with low interest. Overall, building all this would take around 6 months to be done and developed with a good standard.

Overall what the app needs is a Project manager, Programmer, UI/UX designer, QA engineer to start up building it. The app itself varies in costs depending on what you add to it, and it starts building up and getting more expensive as you add features. It’s important to keep in mind when creating a new app that it needs to develop over time and add new features when necessary.

The app’s main source of income will be ads, sponsorships and the paid version. Building business partners with the different services advertised on the app is a great option for them to be present within the app and gives an extra income. As almost any service, website and app right now, ads are present all the time and it helps the different businesses gain their income. Many people are against ads and they pay for different subscriptions so they can enjoy their services ads free.

Chapter 4: Conclusion and future directions

Based on my research and development, my idea attracts a new market for new costumers willing to explore the possibilities of new destinations simply by stating their budget, and also remains as a valuable option to those who want an easier way to organize their trips. Most people agree that having an app to plan out your trip according to your budget is a smart idea that helps to avoid 1. People going over budget and 2. Wasting time building itineraries. It’s a fact that having everything booked from the start is a money saver, as you already have most of the things paid, the remaining of what you bring with you on the trip is explicitly for your pleasure. As much as traveling is something we enjoy a lot, planning our trips takes a lot of time and we have to be sure we’re not going to be part of a scam. Having an app that has reliable information along with everything you need to make the most out of your trip is going to make trip planning something you’ll enjoy doing. In the future as technology progresses it’ll be easier to obtain data, making the app and recommendations more accurate. Also, we’ll have more ways to access information, therefore the app can evolve to other devices.

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