Make Your Travel Service Seamless With Design Thinking. Learn How

The travel industry, with its promise of adventure and discovery, often leaves travelers grappling with unexpected frustrations.

Delayed flights, lost luggage, clunky booking systems, and subpar customer service can quickly turn excitement into stress. Consider aviation, where cramped seats, endless security lines, and unpredictable schedules can make even the most anticipated trip a nightmare.

So, how can the industry rise above these challenges? Enter Design Thinking.

Design Thinking is a user-centered problem-solving approach that emphasizes empathy, creativity, and collaboration. It’s about truly understanding travelers’ needs and pain points, then crafting, testing, and refining solutions that directly address those challenges.

The travel industry can revolutionize every aspect of the customer journey by adopting design thinking. It turns obstacles into opportunities for innovation, ensuring that each stage of the travel experience is as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

To do that, we must first understand what the pain points are and how to Identify them.

Identifying Pain Points And Opportunities With Design Thinking Principles

Travel companies can use the principles of design thinking to understand the pain points that are involved in a traveler’s journey, and map them to identify opportunities that create exceptional experiences.

Here’s how design thinking can help:

• Empathize: Deeply understand travelers’ emotions, needs, and motivations from planning to post-trip reflections to uncover what truly matters.
• Define: Clearly identify pain points like cumbersome bookings, lack of personalized recommendations, or difficulties in navigating destinations to frame the challenges.
• Ideate: Brainstorm creative solutions such as intuitive mobile apps, virtual reality previews, or personalized itineraries based on preferences.
• Prototype: Develop prototypes to test and refine solutions, ensuring they are both innovative and practical.
• Test: Validate solutions in real-world scenarios, monitoring how effectively they alleviate frustrations and enhance the travel experience.

Mapping the Traveler’s Experience 

After Identifying, it is important to Mapping the traveler’s experience is essential for enhancing their journey through design thinking. Here’s how to do it effectively:

• Dissect Stages: Identify key journey stages, from inspiration and research to booking, experiencing, and reflecting.
• Capture Touchpoints: Map all brand interactions, including website visits, social media, customer service, and on-site experiences.
• Understand Emotions: Explore travelers’ emotions at each stage, noting moments of delight, frustration, and excitement.
• Identify Pain Points: Spot friction areas, like complex booking or communication gaps, that disrupt the journey.
• Highlight Opportunities: Look for ways to surprise and delight, such as personalized recommendations and seamless transitions.
• Iterate and Refine: Continuously improve your understanding based on feedback and data, ensuring your offerings stay relevant.

After mapping and refining the traveler’s experience, travel companies can use the design thinking principles to define challenges and set actionable goals.

Define: Defining Travel Challenges and Goals

In the context of design thinking in travel, defining clear objectives is essential. These objectives act as a compass guiding the journey towards innovation:

• Formulating Clear Objectives: Define your destination with precision by setting goals that align with the needs and aspirations of both travelers and stakeholders. Clarity is key, transforming complex challenges into actionable targets.
• Collaborative Ideation: Engage in collaborative ideation, bringing together diverse perspectives to craft objectives that resonate across teams. Focus on measurability by setting key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and success.

With clear objectives in place, businesses can navigate the landscape of travel design, charting a course toward meaningful and impactful solutions.

Framing the Problem Statement

Framing the problem statement in design thinking for travel is akin to setting the stage for innovation:

• User-Centric Solutions: Dive deep into the heart of traveler challenges, distilling insights from user research into a concise and focused problem statement.
• Innovation and Creativity: Highlight the core issue, shedding light on the pain points and aspirations of travelers and stakeholders. Clarity and empathy should guide this process, ensuring the problem statement resonates with all involved.

Some examples that illustrate the pain points in real world:

1. Limited Airport Accessibility

Airports often lack sufficient accessibility for travelers with disabilities. Issues like poor signage, inaccessible restrooms, and long gate distances can create stress. Wheelchair users may face delays due to inadequately trained staff and unclear pathways.

2. Inaccessible Public Transportation

Many public transportation systems aren’t designed for accessibility. Buses, trains, and subways may lack ramps, elevators, or reserved seating, forcing travelers with mobility impairments to rely on costly alternatives like taxis, limiting their exploration options.

3. Inadequate Hotel Accommodations

Hotels often fall short in providing necessary accommodations for disabled travelers, such as roll-in showers and widened doorways. Accessible rooms are frequently limited or poorly maintained, and online booking platforms often lack detailed accessibility information, leading to unexpected issues.

Applying Design Thinking to Solve Pain Points in Travel Industry

The design thinking process offers a powerful framework for tackling challenges in the travel industry. Using the design thinking principles, travel businesses can develop innovative solutions that address the specific needs of all travelers, including those with disabilities. Here’s how each stage can be applied:

1. Empathize: Understanding Needs

The first step is to deeply understand travelers’ experiences, especially those with accessibility challenges.

Example: Mobility-impaired travelers often struggle in airports. Understanding their experiences, companies can identify pain points like navigating terminals and accessing amenities.

Solution: Develop airport navigation apps tailored for travelers with disabilities, offering real-time updates on services like wheelchairs and accessible restrooms.

2. Define: Pinpointing Issues

Next, clearly define the core challenges identified during the empathy stage.

Example: Disabled travelers often lack clear information about accessible transportation in new cities.

Solution: Define the problem as a need for reliable, real-time information on accessible transportation, guiding targeted solution development.

3. Ideate: Generating Solutions

Brainstorm creative solutions to address the identified pain points.

Example: Create a platform aggregating accessible transportation options or partner with local services for on-demand rides.

Innovation: Develop a mobile app that provides information and booking features for accessible transportation, simplifying the process for travelers.

4. Prototype: Testing Solutions

Turn ideas into prototypes for testing.

Example: Build a basic prototype of the accessible transportation app with essential features like booking accessible rides.

Innovation: Include voice commands, real-time vehicle availability, and guides for public transport, gathering immediate user feedback for improvements.

5. Test: Real-World Validation

Finally, test prototypes in real-world scenarios.

Example: Test the app with disabled travelers in various cities, using feedback to refine features.

Innovation: Testing may reveal additional needs, like integrating with other travel apps or adding accessibility ratings, ensuring the final product meets travelers’ needs.

Some examples of travel and transport companies that applied design thinking to achieve their results.

Airbnb

Airbnb is a prime example of a travel brand that has embraced design thinking to revolutionize the way people book accommodations and experience travel. From the outset, Airbnb’s founders applied design thinking principles to understand the needs of both hosts and guests, leading to the creation of a platform that prioritizes user experience and community engagement.

Airbnb employs design thinking methodologies across various aspects of its business, from website and app design to service innovations such as Airbnb Experiences, which offer unique activities curated by locals. After continuously iterating based on user feedback and insights, Airbnb has become a leading disruptor in the travel industry.

JetBlue’s Design Thinking Success

In 2000, JetBlue’s founder David Neeleman utilized design thinking to stand out in a crowded airline market. He deeply understood customer needs and helped JetBlue introduce key innovations that redefined the flying experience.

Recognizing that passengers found flights boring, JetBlue equipped its planes with seatback screens offering DVR features and 24 live satellite TV channels. Instead of offering traditional airline meals, they focused on high-quality branded snacks like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and Terra Blue chips, allowing passengers to enjoy as much as they wanted.

They also introduced Live Maps, providing real-time flight updates directly on seatback screens, keeping passengers informed throughout their journey. To streamline boarding, JetBlue trained crew members to assist with luggage, reducing delays and improving overall satisfaction.

By listening to customers and implementing these insights, JetBlue not only launched successfully but also set a new standard for the airline industry, proving that customer feedback drives meaningful innovation.

Sixt’s Web & Mobile Redesign

NetBramha transformed the web and mobile experience for Sixt to address user frustrations identified through design thinking research and create a seamless, enjoyable journey.

Through rigorous experimentation, testing, iteration, and data-driven insights, Sixt achieved a 20% increase in booking click-through rates across devices. The redesign ensured consistency across all user journeys, enhancing both usability and satisfaction. This comprehensive approach allowed Sixt to scale its services, reaching over 2,000 locations in 130+ countries.

The focus on modular and consistent design also dramatically improved developer efficiency, enabling faster and more scalable feature development. By prioritizing user experience and maintaining consistency across platforms, Sixt not only improved its digital presence but also set the stage for sustained growth and customer loyalty.

Stolt-Nielsen’s Digital Transformation

Stolt-Nielsen sought NetBramha’s support to revolutionize its global shipping operations by digitizing offline processes and integrating data across its fleet. The new centralized system allows users to create and manage shipping schedules, track end-to-end activities, and access vital information like travel routes, cargo details, and loading specifics.

The impact was significant: IoT-enabled tracking provided accurate, timely updates, while a simplified communication channel connected over 7,000 employees across 44 locations.

This transformation resulted in greater transparency, a more seamless in-product experience, and a more reliable service for customers. Using design thinking principles, NetBramha was able to present Stolt-Nielsen a design that helped them enhance operational efficiency and set a new standard for transparency and reliability in the shipping industry.

Elevating Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in the Travel Industry with Design Thinking

Design thinking is a powerful approach that elevates both customer satisfaction and loyalty in the travel industry. It centers on travelers’ needs and helps companies create personalized experiences, streamline journeys, and proactively solve problems, resulting in happier customers.

This satisfaction naturally leads to stronger loyalty, as customers who feel understood and valued are more likely to return and advocate for the brand.

At NetBramha, design thinking is integral to our product strategy and design framework. We use it to deeply understand our users, iterate on ideas, and deliver the best possible solutions for both users and businesses. Our approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also fosters lasting loyalty.

If you’re looking to transform your travel or transport company, let’s collaborate.

Contact us today to explore how we can help.