In the last 2 posts, I detailed the market needs, and the itinerary planner user story. Continuing with more features around maintaining content, creating a transactional marketplace for revenue generation, and finally some integration ideas to piggy-back on the success of others.

Content

• Search public itineraries based on destination
• System should suggest ‘hot’ holiday options – not in a salesy way – but genuine, recent itineraries that are verified for feasibility, cost estimate, etc.
• Suggestions/searches should be based searches based on demographic information: age, gender, marital status, profession, origin city
• Rate, review itineraries
• Maintain places with linked information: map, entrance fees, best-time-of-day, visit duration
• Maintain cities, categories, modes of transport, currencies, exchange rates
• When creating my itinerary, similar itineraries from other users should be suggested – verified, promoted, voted itineraries on top

Marketplace

• Directly contact agents on public itineraries
• Agents can view & receive alerts for shared itineraries in their service area
• Agents can submit bids that be reviewed compared side-by-side with included places/meals & merge itineraries or individual items [versioning]
• Collaborate/negotiate with agents on a bid, and finally award
• Allow agents to attach confirmations, visas, etc. – that remain private even when the itinerary is shared

Integration

• Accommodation: get best prices from top 3 websites for the selected date location
• Transport: get best prices to the destination, with “flexible dates” option, and suggest best transits worth a stop-over
• Rentals: for road journeys, suggest available rental options
• Traffic: use traffic information to estimate journey times between places
• Fares: get entrance fees and estimated taxi fares
• City cards: analyze entrance fees and suggest savings from city cards (e.g. iVenture card)

Strengths:

• Solves a real problem for backpackers
• Integration & market-place: lot of stickiness for a content + transaction website

Challenges:

• It might be a while before there is enough content – itineraries
• Ensuring simple design to handle required interactivity on all browser

Being a product manager is about not being content with what is around. I looked all around the place for a complete vacation planner app and finally created a wish list of what such an app would constitute. Continuing from the previous post on the topic, here is a high-level user story for each of my needs:

Itinerary Planner

• Start with a destination of my choice and add places to it [content]
• Each place can be placed on an interactive itinerary map
• Add category, description, images, comments, expenses (entrance fees, meals), attachments (bookings, etc.), hyperlinks, mark them as optional
• View ratings [integration]
• Auto-insert the place on the interactive calendar based on best-time-of-day information [content] and allow me to adjust
• Plan the journey between places by specifying mode of transport, journey time & estimate cost [content, integration]
• Add meals to places & journey with preferred joint & cost estimate
• Validate if too much is planned for a day based on visit duration [content] and highlight optional places from the ‘Going to’ bucket that can be moved to a ‘May be’ bucket
• When moving places around, system should remind to update the journey between places
• Total itinerary cost should be constantly updated and displayed in local currency so I can budget; highlight places & journeys without estimates
• Filter places on the by category, expense
• Share my itinerary with others on the website; email the web link
• Collaborate with co-travellers on the itinerary [roadmap]

Travel

• Print/Email the itinerary with selected elements
• Allow including embassy information, emergency numbers, weather, etc.
• Mobile site to rate places, enter actual cost & time, add public & private notes
• Update current location, upload photos & add notes that loved ones can view on a shared link
• Mobile app [roadmap], share location on social media [integration]

In Part 2 of this post, we talk about more features ideas and concept’s strengths and challenges.