AGODA MARKETPLACE

Product Design

Agoda marketplace was a new product that offered our guest the ability to add ancillary offers with there bookings.  We expander our offerings of local tours, attractions, transportation & great value staycation bundles. Go Cashless. Flexible Cancellation. Book On the Go.

ROLE

Drove the strategy in driving the UX team to align with business goals

Partnered with tech to understand technical constraints & cost to understand ROI return.

Drove UX strategy to analysis what are the best points in existing consumer funnel to push marketplace products & offerings.

Worked with supply team to understand how we can best position hotels & vendors to manage and promote offerings.

• DESIGNERS: 2 Sr UX Designers, 1 UI Designer
• UX RESEARCH: UX Researcher
• PRODUCT MANAGER: 2 Product Managers
• DEVELOPERS: 3 iOS, 2 Android, 4 desktop engineers

CONTEXT

Why Marketplace?

Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings. Based on the fake door test we quickly realized that guest were interested in booking additional trip requirements both thru Agoda and the hotel.  

TALKING TO HOTELS & SUPPLIERS

Research

Based on our initial research and fake door test, we quickly realized there is a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda on our platform. Our PMs had partnered with the supply team to conduct research to understand further if both our guest, suppliers were interested in booking additional services on our platform and drive more engagement and one shop for all for our guest.

How can we verify this?

We reached out to our hotels & supply chain to see what properties were selling to guest arriving at their property either booking on Agoda or 3rd party OTA sites.  We wanted to understand what hotels were selling today and would they be wiling to sell there services on the Agoda platform. 

The included trying to up sell guest with room upgrades, transportation, dinner vouchers, attractions, tours & spa packages.

• Run fake door test to gauge user interest
• Conduct surveys with properties to understand what they were offering guest today
• Understand what properties would be willing to sell on the Agoda platform

What we learned.

Property Upgrades

76% of properties were were trying to sell room upgrades to guest upon checkin. There was opportunities from post checking to pre-checkin to potentially have them upgrade on Agoda. 

Transporation

With most bookings out of town arrivals, 60% of properties were reaching out to guest to sell them transportation offerings.

Attractions & off property offerings

Properties were hesitant to sell offerings that were not there own supply.

UX CHALLENGES & BUSINESS GOALS

Product Design

Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings. Based on the fake door test we quickly realized that guest were interested in booking additional trip requirements both thru Agoda.

UX CHALLENGES

Based on our research we needed to understand what was the best way to showcase the ancillary offerings to our users during their booking process.  The product & research team had also highlighted there were opportunities to decouple the user from being required to have a booking attached to a ancillary offering. As a UX challenge we had to understand how would we drive higher margins for hotel bookings, while also drive ancillary offerings that were not connected to a previous or current booking. We needed to understand how not to cannibalize our existing bookings or conversions.

UX GOALS

How can you showcase ancillary offerings tied to hotels but yet not cannibalize the guest experience at the hotel & room experience vs ancillary offerings.

If we drive visibility off property offers  on the search results page we have to ensure showcasing offers help users learn more about the property & hence have more confident in staying the property as they feel they could have a well rounded experience.

BUSINESS GOALS

Acceptance criteria

Localize and learn which offerings based on personalization experience of user to ensure highest conversion rate

Rationale

Increase margins for hotels & Agoda on each booking

Tracking

Users upgrading room bookings with the addition of ancillary add ons

Measuring click thru rate & engagement with room offers which offered ancillary offerings.

WHAT ARE SOLVING FOR?

RESEARCH PLAN

Partnering with research team we realized there was a demand for ancillary sales thru Agoda. We ran a series of fake door test with our users post booking thru our chat feature to ask if they were interested in room upgrades, dinning options, spa & massage offerings and other ancillary offerings. Based on the fake door test we quickly realized that guest were interested in booking additional trip requirements both thru Agoda.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

We partnered with the research team to speak to hotel managers & supply managers to understand how Agoda help sell their ancillary offerings on our platform and connect with guest thru out their stay at the property. We needed to understand where during the booking process users would be most enticed to book on our platform.

• Understand where during the booking process do users book ancillary offerings
• Qualitative and quantitative research
• Competitive Analysis
• Prioritize our roadmap based key research

RESEARCH PLAN

Setup a time to go meet with hotel partners to understand what the value of ancillary offerings is to their bottom line and guest experience. Working with hotels & talking to guest we want to understand whats the best time to position offerings to guest to drive maximum value and high conversions.

• Interview hotels to understand there supply & how they would want to sell on Agoda
• Speak to hotel guest to understand where in the process of accommodation bookings do they consider booking ancillary offers
• Prioritize MVP roadmap
• Competitive Analysis

Based on the initial research we were able see 2 clear personas of users that would be interested in making ancillary bookings on agoda platform.

WHO WILL BE OUR USERS?

PERSONAS

PRE PLANNER & FAMILY TRAVELER

We found that a key sector in folks making hotel bookings followed it up with planning their entire trip within days to finalize tours, attractions & transport. It was important for us to capitalize on these travelers and have them buy on Agoda.

SOLO & ON THE GO TRAVELER

We also found their was a large number of solo travelers who booked ancillary offers on the go or days before their visit or on arrival. We needed to find ways to communicate to guest during pre trip, in-trip to get them to shop on Agoda for there trip requirements. 

INDUSTRY BENCHMARKING

HOTEL INDUSTRY

Based on our research we discovered there were 4 primary competitors in the space. WIth the research team we partnered to understand what each competitor was doing well & what users liked about there experience on each platform. We also did research where in the user’s booking journey did these competitors come into play.

AIRBNB EXPERIENCES

Airbnb has done a great job in providing both accommodation bookings & trip experiences as one stop shop. This was a great competitor to analyze measure our platform.

TRIP ATTRACTIONS

Trip has a large following of group bookers who both utilize accommodation bookings & reserving experiences on their platform. 

KLOOK

Klook quickly has grown to one the key platforms in the space who has created a seem less experience to book experiences all over the world with trusted host & tour guides. 

GET YOUR GUIDE

Get your guide is one the key platforms in the space who has created a seem less experience to book experiences all over the world with trusted host & tour guides. 

RESEARCH OUTCOMES

WHAT WE DISCOVERED?

We looked at how services like Facebook and Instagram have set the behavior in the way user consumes travel content visually. Agoda accommodations teams noticed the majority of their users who are searching and discovering properties where not optimally gaining an experience that let them compare properties to make a choice easily that met their hospitality requirements. They wanted to easily compare properties during the search and discovery page without ping pong between property detail pages which could help them save time and match them with their accommodation requirements faster and more efficiently.  

KEY INSIGHTS

Based on our research it clear that hotels were interested in selling there ancillary offerings on our platform and wanted to understand how we would position the grouping of hotel bookings & offerings to guest. They wanted to see which model was more beneficial to them and if the margin cost made sense in the long run. 

 

KEY FINDINGS

• Demand for ancillary sales
• Hotels were looking ways to increase margins via Agoda
• Non hotel suppliers were also looking to sell on Agoda
• Hotels were looking to sell room upgrades, transportation, hotel spa packages before arrival
• Hotels wanted to communicate with guest during pre-tip to up sell there services & offerings

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Based on research insights it was important for us to present to our stakeholders prior data that validated the booker needs and how it would correlate into experiments moving forward. 

VALIDATE PRIMARY NEEDS

Acceptance criteria

Do we drive more value for properties & Agoda while increasing visits to Agoda per year per user

Rationale

Do hotels see this as added value to provide us better pricing on ancillary offerings vs directly selling to the consumers

Tracking

Track to see how many users actually add ancillary offers to there bookings and also see how. many users engage with email offers

 

VALIDATE PROPOSITON

Based on key learnings and insights it was very crucial to create a experience that didn’t create more friction, confusion during the booking process of accommodation but instead provide more value proposition for bookers to book there all inclusive trip at once.  

Increase Margins

Increase percentage of bookings to add ancillary offerings to the total booking price

Trust

Provide a channel of communication that drives trust between users & properties to sell the on reliable ancillary offerings

Build a inventory & scale

Build a inventory to drive non agoda bookers to book ancillary offerings on our platform regardless where they booked there accommodations

SOLUTIONS

FINAL OUTCOMES

Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.Multiple rounds of design iteration, testing with users, presenting to stakeholders allowed us to iterate on each component and establish the solution that was scalable, highly converting & user friendly.

ONBOARING SUPPLIERS

To onboard our suppliers we utilized our primary property management tool to encourage suppliers to increase revenue by offering ancillary offers via our email & chat communication with guest.

GETTING HOTELS TO ONBOARD

For our hotels we also provided tips on how hotels could leverage our platform to sell ancillaries offers on our website/app. We build recommendation tools on what our the best offers to showcase to guest.

USER INBOX MESSAGING

We used our existing messaging platforms with guest to message them offers directly from the hotel to encourage to book before arrival at the property. 

MESSAGING OFFERS

We provided tips to hotels & suppliers on how to message offers and how to best drive conversions thru our tools above. Below is a example of a property selling transportation.

PROCESSING BOOKING

If a use is interested and clicks thru we we will send them thru our booking process of a hotel but with the exception of processing there ancillary offering booking. 

USER FLOW

BOOKING A ANCILLARY OFFER

Below is the user flow we put together to have users flow from the offering page, to the detail page and payment process to confirm there booking on Agoda for there ancillary offers.

APP SOLUTIONS

ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES

Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience. 

HOME LANDING PAGE

Below is the mobile web landing page users land on to discover ancillary offers.

OFFER PAGE

Below is the ancillary detail page that shows the offer detail and options. 

DETAILS & SELECTION

For offerings that have multiple offers we had to create a framework.

VOUCHER & TICKETS

Vouchers & redemption page users can provide to vendor during activity.

PAYMENTS

We utilized our existing payment funnel to help users feel trust & confidence.

DISCOVERY PAGE

Alternative landing page to help users discover activities during there trip.

WEB SOLUTIONS

ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES

Below are the final layouts we produced and the landing page for users who were redirected from chat or landed directly marketing channels to only book ancillary offers. The mobile and web layouts allowed both hotels & suppliers to target guest who booked on Agoda or other platforms to help drive increase of revenue and access to there inventory to a larger audience. 

LANDING PAGE

Below is the landing page design that bookers are directed from MSE or potential 3rd party sites or hotels & suppliers themselves.

GUEST BOOKING ON AGODA

The landing page below is for guest who have made a booking on Agoda and we provided suggestions and promotions based on there booking.

WEB DETAIL PAGE

PAYMENT PROCESSING

SUPPLY SOLUTIONS

ACCOMMODATE BUSINESSES

SUPPLY OFFER GENERATOR

Below is the internal tools are hotels use to generate offers to guest via our chat tool. The dashboard below recommends offerings the hotels can communicate before arrival, during stay with guest.

COMMUNICATION WITH GUEST

Below is the dashboard where suppliers can setup communication channels with guest based on criteria of arrival date, length of stay and there location to drive more personalization experience. 

RESULTS

FINAL SOLUTION & RESULTS

We successfully launched the new experience to the guest in February of 2020. With a successful A/B experiment we were able to see a clear correlation of users engaging with the new experience & content which also lead to user trust, validation and higher conversions and reduce ping pong effect. Due to COVID-19 and most our key markets shutdown due to lockdowns we have suspended the product till further date.