Cathay Pacific
2023
For a design contest, Ideated based on current reality. Didn’t Validate due to time & other constraints
Background
Cathay operates scheduled passenger services to over 60 countries in 190 destinations. Customers now can book flights, hotels, flights+hotels, activities & cars through their holidays category powered by Expedia & Hertz. UXcel recently hosted a global design contest with the theme of designing a search & booking experience for discovering holiday events & experiences in customers’ preferred locations. After closely following Cathay, I took this opportunity to design with the current reality in mind. Let's assume that they plan to cross-sell holiday events & experiences to help their customers avoid the need to research elsewhere & book separately. Due to limited time, I only focused on events as an experience, Not the other categories.
Skills
Competitive analysis, Effort/Impact matrix, Interaction Design, Prototype
Hypothesis
If users book flights from the holidays category with Cathay, Then they may add events based on their personal preferences.
Outcome
Conversion rates No.of flight tickets & events booked. I was shortlisted in the top 10% among 150+ global submissions. To scale/personalise digital experiences in the future, My goal is to bring Expedia & Hertz experiences internally & test them with 10% of the existing traffic, Since they both roughly charge 15%-25% of Cathay’s overall revenue for using their services. To improve continuously & evaluate the designs, Monitoring the task completion rates & using a mixed-method approach at regular intervals both quantitatively & qualitatively may further help in the future.
British Airways offers events in some countries, None of them cross-sell other types of holiday experiences
Competitive analysis
Apart from the standard flights+hotels, None of the direct/indirect competitors cross-sell other types of holiday events & experiences, Meet-up & Eventbrite are the only dedicated places to look for events as an experience globally. Thai & British Airways also offers other types of holiday experiences in some countries. Emirates, Expedia & Trip in almost all countries, More than 50% of the researched competitor’s digital experience is needlessly complicated & outdated.
Features
British Airways offers book now & pay later with flexible instalments, Emirates offers tour guides & last-minute cancellations. Expedia & Trip provides last-minute deals for unplanned holidays, Meet-up & Eventbrite are personalised based on interests & current location.
High Effort / Low Impact vs Low Effort / High Impact
How might we help to efficiently find & book events as a holiday experience? How might we recommend events as part of holiday experience booking?
Cross-selling avoids the need to research elsewhere, book elsewhere & may generate extra revenue
Value proposition
Flights are core to Cathay’s business,
Validation
Since this was a competition with limited time,
Goal
Our flight bookings from the holidays category will recommend events based on users’ personal preferences. This will affect users planning their holidays with Cathay by simplifying & elevating the overall digital experience. We will measure effectiveness by the number of tickets & events booked.