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Wanderlust
Experiencing the journey with waves......
Shailly Gadhiya
Developed under :Fifth Beat
Supervisor : Raaele Boiano
2
3
Laurea Megistrale (Msc) in Digital & Interaction Design
Academic Year 2017-2019
Topic : Wanderlust - Experiencing the journey with
waves
Student name : Shailly Rajenkumar Gadhiya
Matricular number : 895935
Supervisor : Prof. Raaele Boiano
Wanderlust
Experiencing the journey with waves......
INDEX
Declaration
Abstract - English & Italian
Acknowledgement
List of gures
01. Introduction
1.1 Sea Travel Tourism : the context
1.2 Who is oceanline?
1.3 From marketing to qualitative research
1.4 Motivation behind this project.
1.5 Methodology
02. State of Art
2.1 Introduction about dierent approaches of design research.
2.2 What is qualitative research ?
2.3 Techniques for conducting qualitative user research.
2.4 Codifying and categorizing information.
2.5 What is persona and its characteristics ?
2.6 Dierent approaches to create personas.
03. The design of the research
3.1 Double diamond process for the specic research
3.2 WYNTK Ocean line
3.5 Screening participants (sampling)
3.3 Benchmark (Competitor analysis)
3.4 Discovery Research Questions (Moderation guide)
04. Execution of the research
22-33
32-55
56-97
98-141
4.1 Target category of participants ( Past guests, New to cruise,
Competitor cruises)
4.2 Type of interview (Structured interviews, in-depth interviews,
narrative interviews)
4.3 Transcription policies: (3)(1-Past guest, 2-NTC, 3-CC)
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
36-37
38-40
41-45
46-48
49-51
52-55
58-59
60-62
63-83
64-89
90-97
100-101
102-103
104-141
05. Analysis of the research
5.1 Clustering information with tags
5.2 Findings (Key insights)
5.3 Emerging dimensions for personas
5.4 Clusters of traits(behaviours) for building persona
06. Outcome of this research
6.1 Draft Persona (for internal and external review)
6.2 Final Persona Poster
07. Conclusions
7.1 Personas for business strategies
7.2 Personas for guiding structure, content, and design
5.5 Grid and structure of Persona
Bibliography
142-163
164-186
188-193
144-154
155
156-158
159-161
162-163
166-183
184-187
166-183
184-187
194-197
DECLARATION
This thesis, titled Wanderlust - Experiencing the journey with
waves, is presented in partial fullment of the requirements for the
Degree of Laurea Magistrale in Politecnico di Milano . It is entirely
my own work and has not been submitted to any other university
or higher education institution, or any other academic award in this
university. In this book, wherever there is a use of other people's
works , it has been fully acknowledged and referenced.
Shailly Gadhiya
Acknowledgement
I take this opportunity to thank Raaele Boiano for his proper
guidance, suggestions and co-operation which led to the
successful completion of this thesis project. With this I would like
to thank Raaella Roviglioni for guiding and supervising me at
every step of this project, along with i am thankful to the whole
team of fth beat for this opportunity. Prof Mariana Ciancia always
supported me with her valuable feedback for improving. I would
also like to show my gratitude for Prof Margeret Pillan for guiding
me throughout the course and the project. Without their eorts
and opinions, this thesis would not have been possible. I
appreciate all the panel members of the thesis jury to give their
valuable suggestions and remarks. I am thankful to my dad, Mr.
Rajenkumar Gadhiya who supported me at all times and put his
best eorts in helping me get all the necessary resources
required for this thesis project. I also want to thank my friends who
constantly helped me with their support.
ABSTRACT (ENGLISH)
In postmodern society, tourism and leisure are no longer a residual
part of life.
Instead, they are high value activities that contribute to the
construction of the identity of social actors. Tourism is a dynamic
phenomenon which changes along with other social transformation.
New trends and tendencies in tourism has been witnessed in the
society. Due to the globalization process, development of means of
transport and ubiquity of communication tools.
All these factors have a major impact on the development of new
tourism practices. Travelling focuses on two main aspects HOW(expe-
rience) and WHERE(destination).
Travelling with the means of water is a grooming concept came into
consideration nowadays in eyes of travellers. In the world of cut throat
competition travel industry customer needs are shaping the future
customer experience. Today’s travellers want brands to add meaning
to their travels and make the journey feel less fragmented. Because
for travellers, their holidays is not just a series of data points, its
something they’re eagerly anticipating and have worked hard for.
Brands looking to rise above their rivals need a new wave of
innovation. One that increases their relevance throughout the entire
journey-from initial research to returning home. For this reason
knowing customer is quite important for the brands.
This thesis focuses on research made on one of such brands of
cruising industry “Ocean line” (Not mentioning the real name).
This research focuses on the phrase before rst moment of truth of
brand with the customer which can be named as “ZERO MOMENT OF
TRUTH”, the moment wherecustomer gets introduced with concept of
travel through the means of water.
ABSTRACT (ITALIAN)
Nella società postmoderna, il turismo e il tempo libero non sono più
una parte residua della vita.
Invece, sono attività di alto valore che contribuiscono alla costruzi-
one del identità di attori sociali. Il turismo è un fenomeno dinamico
che cambia insieme ad altre trasformazioni sociali. Nuove tendenze
e tendenze nel turismo sono state testate nella società. A causa del
processo di globalizzazione,sviluppo di mezzi di trasporto e ubiquità
di strumenti di comunicazione.
Questi fattori hanno un forte impatto sullo sviluppo di nuove pratich-
turistiche. Il viaggio si concentra su due aspetti principali: (esperienza)
e DOVE (destinazione).
Viaggiare con un concetto di toelettatura. Oggi negli occhi dei viag-
giatori. Nel mondo della competizione “tagliata di gola”, la futura es-
perienza del cliente si sta congurando. I viaggiatori di oggi vogliono
fare il loro viaggio e rendere il viaggio meno frammentato. A causa
dei viaggiatori per le loro vacanze non è solo una serie di punti dati,
è qualcosa che stanno aspettando con impazienza e hanno lavorato
duramente per. Le marche che guardano ai loro nuovi rivali hanno
bisogno di una nuova ondata di innovazione. Uno che aumenta la loro
rilevanza nel corso dell’intero viaggio: dalla ricerca iniziale al ritorno a
casa. Per questo motivo sapere il cliente è abbastanza importante per
i marchi.
Questa tesi si concentra sulla ricerca fatta su uno di tali marchi di cro-
ciera industria “Ocean line” (senza menzionare il vero nome).
“ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH”, il momento in cui il cliente viene intro-
dotto con il concetto di viaggio.
19
LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES
Fig 1 Double diamond design process according to
Design Council
32
Interactive Model by Maxwell, J. (2005). Fig 2 39
Four common research methods describes a
complete potrait of users (Mulder, S. and Yaar,
Z. 2007).
Fig 3 53
Double diamond design process for this
specic research
Fig 4 58
Representing Website navigation (Main menu) for
Oceanline
Table 1 64-65
Table 2 Representing Websitenavigation(Main menu) for
Oceania
66-67
Table 3 Representing Website navigation (Main menu) for
River cruises.
68-69
Table 4 Representing Website navigation(Main menu) for
Lindblad expedition
70-71
Result of dierent dimensions identied during
analysis
Fig 5 156
Dierent majority of clusters of dimensions
idetied.
Fig 6 157
20
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.for Oceanline
78
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.for Oceania.
79
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.for River cruises
79
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.forLinblad Expedition
80
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.for Quark Expedition
Table 14 80
Table 15 Representing Content type: Features & Commu-
nication.for Oceanline
81
Table 16 Representing Content type: Features & Commu-
nication .for Oceania.
82
Table 17 82Representing Content type: Features & Commu-
nication .for River cruises.
Table 18 83
Table 19
Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.forLinblad Expedition.
83Representing Content type: Photos, Videos and
Maps.for Quark Expedition
Table 10
Table 11
Table 12
Table 13
Table 7 75Representing Website navigation (Main menu+
Footer) for Oceania
Table 8 76Representing Website navigation (Secondary
Menu + Footer) for River Cruises .
Table 9 77Representing Website navigation (Secondary
Menu + Footer) for Lindblad expedition
Table 5 72-73Representing Website navigation (Main menu+
Footer) for Quark expedition
Table 6 74Representing Website navigation (Secondary
Menu + Footer) for Oceanline .
21
1.1 Sea Travel Tourism : the context
1.2 Who is oceanline?
1.3 From marketing to qualitative research
1.4 Motivation behind this project.
1.5 Methodology
INTRODUCTION
01
24
1.1 Sea Travel Tourism : the context
Cruise Travel uses a cruise ship to provide travellers with
pleasure voyages. These voyages and the onboard activities
brings rich experience and benets for explorers, as well as the
shore excursion in ports of call along the way. For cruise shipping,
transportation is not the purpose, but the experience is the focus,
as cruise ships in some itineraries pick and return the cruise
passengers at the same port and traverses a service route with
some predetermined ports of call.
The Caribbean area and the Mediterranean area are two dominant
areas in cruise shipping industry, which are the two most popular
cruising areas among the cruise passengers. However, in recent
years, the cruise market in Asian area is booming.
With the advancement of technology where everything is
available on just ngertips of the user. It is very essential for the
brand to introduce themselves in customers eyes at zero
moment of truth when the user gets introduced to the concept
involved for the service provided by the brand.
“LUXURY IN TRAVEL” - more about the experience, rather than just
the appearance.
Opportunity -
• Most auent travellers research, plan and book their trips
online. The online customer journey oers luxury travel brands
new opportunities to engage their consumers across devices
and channels.
• Digital inspires auent tourists to explore new locations and
experience dierent types of vacations.
• The demand from auent Millennial travellers for
personalised and authentic experiences creates new venues
of growth for the high-end luxury travel industry.
25
Problem -
• The once linear travel customer journey is being replaced by
intent-driven micro-moments, resulting in complex booking
process.
• Auent travellers expect more out of their trips: they want
stories of unique experiences and envy-inducing sharable
photos of their trip. Real-time interactions such as location
check-ins and status updates require luxury travel brands to
leverage social media channels in innovative new ways.
• Millennial travellers prefer to plan and book their vacations
online, increasingly using their mobile devices. They want
personalised content that is relevant to their preferences but
luxury travel brands are struggling to keep up.
There are four essential travel phases that matter in the customer
journey:
Dreaming phase: I-want-to-get-away moments.
Planning phase: Time-to-make-a-plan moments.
Booking phase: Let’s-book-it moments.
Experiencing and sharing phase: Can’t-wait-to-explore moments.
26
1.2 Who is Oceanline?
“Oceanline” is a privately owned mid-market cruise line in the
industry of transportation with its headquarters in San Francisco,
founded in 1994. It’s business model was to operate ships in the
small, all-suite, ultra-luxury category. As of early 2014, the
company had eight boutique cruise ships, each of which carries
only 100 to 540 passengers.
In 2017, Oceanline added the slightly larger (596 passenger)
Ocean Mise, for a total of nine all-suite ships. The company has
two types of eets rstly, Oceanline cruises eet and secondly
Oceanline expedition eet.
According to John Bland, Oceanline President in 1993–94
(Oceanline website):
“.....we have a dierent ship design. It’s larger, very seaworthy and very comfortable for
ocean crossings--but small enough to do the things you want a small luxury vessel to
do, to get into small islands where big ships can’t go, to travel up rivers like the
Thames.”
Oceanline oers ultra-luxurious all-inclusive cruises. Five ships
in its eet sail traditional luxury ocean cruise itineraries while the
remaining four are earmarked for expedition journeys to remote
regions of the world. Stellar service and butlers for everyone are
hallmarks of both types of experiences.
What does Oceanline oer ?
Oceanline oers both luxury cruises and expedition voyages on
purpose-built ships that navigate polar and exotic regions. Crew
members on all ships in the eet receive the same training and
are held to the same rigorous standards. Passengers, on both
luxury and expedition ships, enjoy spacious suites, personal
service, gourmet cuisine and complementary wines, spirits, beer
and other beverages.
27
The vibe is upscale yet friendly. No matter the type of voyage,
passengers can expect a mix of popular ports and rarely visit-
ed destinations on destination-intensive itineraries.Oceanline
Expeditions cruises have an additional secret weapon: the ships'
expedition sta of highly trained guides and naturalists. They give
lectures and accompany shore excursions so they can impart
everything you need to know about the region's ora, fauna and
indigenous culture.
Who are the target users?
The cruise ships tend to draw an older crowd, Oceanline
expeditions appeals to that demographic as well as
young professionals with a desire for active cruising that includes
posh cabins and stellar service alongside Zodiac expeditions,
snorkeling excursions and in-port hikes. In terms of nationality,
usually about 50 percent are from North America, with the other
half coming from all over the world.
28
1.3 From marketing to qualitative research
Marketing research
The process or set of processes that links the producers,
customers, and end users to the marketer through information
used to identify and dene marketing opportunities and problems;
generate, rene, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor
marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing
as a process.It is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis
of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to
marketing products and services.
The goal of marketing research is to identify and assess how
changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer
behavior. Market research consists of systematically gathering
data about people or companies – a market – and then analyzing
it to better understand what that group of people needs.
The results of market research, which are usually summarized in a
report, are then used to help business owners make more
informed decisions about the company’s strategies, operations,
and potential customer base.
Understanding industry shifts, changing consumer needs and
preferences, and legislative trends, among other things, can shape
where a business chooses to focus its eorts and resources.
That’s the value of market research.
Qualitative research
Qualitative research is an approach for exploring and
understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a
social or human problem. The process of research involves
emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in
the participant’s setting, data analysis inductively building from
particulars to general themes, and the researcher making
interpretations of the meaning of the data. Those who engage
in this form of inquiry support a way of looking at research that
honors an inductive style, a focus on individual meaning, and the
importance of rendering the complexity of a situation.
29
Qualitative research is the key to achieve the above mentioned
objective for this project.
• Carry out a user research to gather a deep understanding
of the customers travel booking experience, validating and
ne tuning the business assumptions behind it. Identifying
the factors for choosing a specic travel and the triggers that
motivate the booking.
• Discovering specic needs, expectation and wishes that
could comfort their booking process.
• Identify the main types of customers based on their
dierences in travel behaviors, information gathering and
booking attitude.
• Discovering touch-points and the ways of gathering
information and the relevant pattern of booking.
• Building personas from the identied behavioral patterns
which will arise while analysing the research.
• Prioritize the identied personas based on their strategic rel-
evance and grouping dierent traits to highlighting common
patterns.
• Identifying specic opportunities for each persona, based
on their goals and needs and expressed pain points in the
process.
Outcomes of design research.
Identify personas which will guide the company to redesign of
several touchpoints.
30
1.4 Motivation Behind the Project
Travel is still rated as one of the top sectors for delivering services
customers expect.
Unlike the previous century, tourism was born in relation to
leisure, and based on this, the traditional tourist industry has
always tried to sell the same product and the same model of oer
(same beach, same sea). But today what we must try to do is to
change the story, the way of thinking, of using and selling a
product, because within that non-signicant space of non-work
we express our values, or rather our passions. Therefore, the
“classic” denitions of tourists are not satisfactory, so we must
understand “who our tourists are” and “what their motivations
are”.
Today we dene experiential tourism as the expression of a new
type of consumer that from its tourist action claims to derive not
only more rest or distraction, but also the expression of its own
vocation, or better to experience.
It is not useful to try to dene a univocal concept of experience,
better to plan tourism experiences around the dierent customer
segments (current and potential), to create oers perceived as
relevant by the dierent audiences to which they are addressed.
Rapid transformation is witnessed in the travel industry. Customer
needs are changing with time and their expectations is shaping
future customer experience in travel. Today the modern
travellers know where they want to go(bucket list), are
well-prepared and expect technological devices to add signicant
value to their journey. Not only that, but today’s connected
travellers want brands to add meaning to their travels and make
the journey feel less fragmented. Because for travellers, their holi-
day is not just a series of data points, it’s something they’re eagerly
anticipating and have worked hard for. Brands looking to rise
above their rivals need a new wave of innovation. One that
increases their relevance throughout the entire journey – from
initial research to returning home.
31
This gave me an angle of curiosity to understand signicances
of behaviour, attitude and journey of booking a luxury vacation.
Additionally, i had support from experienced researchers from
Fifth Beat who were in charge of this project. This thesis describes
my journey of experiencing design methods in practical world and
process i followed to attain the pre-decided outcome of research.
32
1.5 Methodology
Starting from literature survey, the design process followed for this
project was double diamond design process. In all creative pro-
cesses a number of possible ideas are created (‘divergent think-
ing’) before rening and narrowing down to the dene (‘convergent
thinking’), and this can be represented by a diamond shape.
The whole process of this research was divided into 2 phases
Discover and Dene (First diamond of double diamond process)
Problem Solution
Design
Hints
Discover Dene
Develop
Deliver
Discover
Dierent methods that could be possibly considered to keep
perspectives wide, allowing for a broad range of ideas and
inuences.
• Observation - Watching people as they interact with
products, services and environments and identifying areas
where problems occur. Depending on your project, you might
want to make general observations of something that already
exists.
Fig 1 : Double diamond design
process according to British
council.
33
• User diaries - Gaining insight into the lives of your users,
particularly when the behavior changes along a timeline.
• Brainstorming - Brainstorming is a method to enable a team to
work together to generate ideas quickly and eectively.
• Quantitative surveys - Understanding the big picture and
providing you with statistics that can help to inform the
direction of your project.
• Benchmark & Competitor analysis - Studying about trend
research, latest developments and what competitors oering
and also identifying a unique features of competitors.
• Interviews - Interviewing can reveal new “frames” or models
that ip the problem on its head. These new ways of looking at
the problem are crucial to identifying innovative opportunities.
Dene
Dierent methods that could be possibly considered to review and
narrow down your insights and which establishes our goal.
• Identifying patterns - Design patterns are repeatable solutions
to recurring design problems.
• Clustering - Visually sorting and prioritising a large amount of
information about a problem.
• Drivers and hurdles - Drivers and hurdles is an exercise to
help you identify where to concentrate your energies for most
eect in the next stages of your project.
• Alignment diagrams - A visual representation of journey that
user follows for dierent phases, illustrating all the dierent
touch points they trust.
2.1 Introduction about dierent approaches of design research.
2.2 What is qualitative research ?
2.3 Techniques for conducting qualitative user research.
2.4 Codifying and categorizing information.
2.5 Description of Personas
STATE OF ART
02
2.6 Approaches to create Personas.
36
2.1 Introduction about dierent approaches
to design research
Research approaches are plans and the procedures for research
that span the steps from broad assumptions to detailed methods
of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. This plan involves
several decisions, and they need not be taken in the order in
which they make sense.“Informing these decisions should be the
philosophical assumptions the researcher brings to the study;
procedures of inquiry (also called research design); and specic
research methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
The selection of a research approach is also based on the nature
of the research problem. In this project, research approaches,
research designs, and research methods are three key terms that
represent a perspective about research that presents information
in a successive way from broad constructions of research to the
narrow procedures of methods.
The three approaches of design research (a) Qualitative, (b)
Quantitative, and (c) Mixed methods. Unquestionably, the three
approaches are not as discrete as they rst appear. Qualitative and
quantitative approaches are not viewed as rigid, distinct
categories, polar opposites, or dichotomies. Instead, they
represent dierent ends on a continuum (Newman & Benz, 1998).
Mixed methods research resides in the middle of this continuum
because it incorporates elements of both qualitative and
quantitative approaches. Often the distinction between qualitative
research and quantitative research is framed in terms of using
words (qualitative) rather than numbers (quantitative), or using
closed-ended questions (quantitative hypotheses) rather than
open-ended questions (qualitative interview questions).
Qualitative research is an approach for exploring and
understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a
social or human problem. The process of research involves
emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in
the participant’s setting, data analysis inductively building from
particulars to general themes, and the researcher making
interpretations of the meaning of the data. The nal written report
has a exible structure. Those who engage in this form of
inquiry support a way of looking at research that honors an
inductive style, a focus on individual meaning, and the importance
of rendering the complexity of a situation.
37
Quantitative research is an approach for testing objective
theories by examining the relationship among variables. These
variables, in turn, can be measured, typically on instruments, so
that numbered data can be analyzed using statistical procedures.
The nal written report has a set structure consisting of
introduction, literature and theory, methods, results, and
discussion. Like qualitative researchers, those who engage in this
form of inquiry have assumptions about testing theories
deductively, building in protections against bias, controlling for
alternative explanations, and being able to generalize and
replicate the ndings.
Mixed methods research is an approach to inquiry involving
collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, integrating the
two forms of data, and using distinct designs that may involve
philosophical assumptions and theoretical frameworks. The core
assumption of this form of inquiry is that the combination of
qualitative and quantitative approaches provides a more complete
understanding of a research problem than either approach alone.
The broad research approach is the plan or proposal to conduct
research, involves the intersection of philosophy, research
designs, and specic methods.
Creswell, j. (n.d.). “Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches. 4th ed. sage.
38
2.2 What is qualitative research ?
A good design, is the one in which all the components works
harmoniously together, promotes ecient and successful
functioning; a awed design leads to poor operation or failure.
However, most works dealing with research design use a dierent
conception of design: a plan or protocol for carrying out or
accomplishing something. (esp. a scientic experiment) (Design,
1984, p. 343). They present “design” either as a menu of standard
types of designs from which you need to choose (typical of
experimental research), or as a prescribed series of stages or tasks
in planning or conducting a study”
Neither typological nor sequential models of design are a good
t for qualitative research, because they attempt to establish in
advance the essential steps or features of the study.
In qualitative research, any component of the design may need to
be reconsidered or modied during the study in response to new
developments or to changes in some other component.
Qualitative research is exible rather than xed (Robson, 2011),
and inductive rather than following a strict sequence or derived
from an initial decision. In a qualitative study, “research design
should be a reexive process operating through every stage of
a project” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995, p. 24). The activities of
collecting and analyzing data, developing and modifying theory,
elaborating or refocusing the research questions, and identify-
ing and addressing validity threats are usually all going on more
or less simultaneously, each inuencing all of the others. This
process isn’t adequately represented by a choice from a prior
menu or by a linear model, even one that allows multiple cycles,
because in qualitative research, there isn’t an unvarying order in
which the dierent tasks or components must be arranged, nor
a linear relationship among the components of a design. Thus, to
design a qualitative study, it can’t just be developed (or borrow)
in a logical strategy in advance and then implement it faithfully. It
needs, to a substantial extent, to construct and reconstruct your
research design, and this is a major rationale for my design model.
Qualitative research design, to a much greater extent than
quantitative research, is a “do-it-yourself” rather than an “o-the-
shelf” process, one that involves “tacking” back and forth
39
between the dierent components of the design, assessing their
implications for one another.1 It does not begin from a
predetermined starting point or proceed through a xed sequence
of steps, but involves interconnection and interaction among the
dierent design components.
In addition, as the architect Frank Lloyd Wright emphasized, the
design of something must t not only its use, but also its
environment (“Organic Architecture,” n.d.). You will need to
continually assess how your design is actually working during the
research and how it inuences and is inuenced by the context in
which you’re operating, and to make adjustments and changes so
that your study can accomplish what you want.
The model of research design, which is also called “interactive”
model”, has a denite structure as illustrated in the below gure.
In this model, dierent parts of a design form an integrated and
interacting whole, with each component must conform. Instead,
they are at the center of the design; they are the heart, or hub, of
the model, the component that connects most directly to all the
other components. They not only have the most direct
inuence on the other components, but are also the component
most directly aected by the others; they should inform, and be
sensitive to, all of the other components. As, research questions
are not xed at the start of the study; they may need to be signi-
cantly modied or expanded as a result of changes in your goals
or conceptual framework, or because of what you learn while
doing the research. What is innovative is the way the relationships
among the components are conceptualized. However, it is an
interconnected and exible structure. In this section, the key
components of a research design are described, and presented as
a strategy for creating coherent and workable relationships among
these components.
Fig 2 Interactive Model by Maxwell, J.
(2005). Qualitative
Research Design. 3rd ed. London:
Sage Publications Inc, p.05.
40
• Goals - Reasons of doing research? What issues are targeted
to be claried, and what practices and policies want it to inu-
ence? Why do you want to conduct this study, and why should
we care about the results?”
• Conceptual framework- Assumptions on the issues, settings,
or people planned to study? What theories, beliefs, and prior
research ndings will guide or inform the research, and what
literature, preliminary studies, and personal experiences will
be helpful for understanding the people or issues decided for
studying?
• Research questions- What, specic knowledge that should be
aimed at discovering to better understand about the settings
or participants that are planned to study? What questions best
capture these learnings and understandings, and how are
these questions related to one another?
• Methods- What actually is to be done while conducting this
study? What approaches and techniques will help to collect
and analyze your data? It is necessary to identify four parts of
this component of research: (a) the relationships that should
be established with the participants in the study; (b) The
selection of settings, participants, times and places of data
collection, and other data sources such as documents (what
is often called sampling); (c) The methods for collecting data;
and (d) data analysis strategies and techniques.
• Validity. How might results and conclusions be wrong? What
are the plausible alternative interpretations and validity threats
to these results and conclusions, and the techniques to deal
with these? How can the collected data, support or challenge
your ideas about what’s going on?
These components are not substantially dierent from the ones
presented in many other discussions of research design (e.g.,
Lecompte & Preissle, 1993; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Robson, 2011;
Rudestam & Newton, 2007, p. 5). What is innovative is the way
the relationships among the components are conceptualized. In
this model, the dierent parts of a design form an integrated and
interacting whole, with each component closely tied to several
others, rather than being linked in a linear or cyclic sequence.
Maxwell, J. (2005). Qualitative
Research Design. 3rd ed. London: Sage Publications Inc, p.05-06
41
2.3 Techniques for conducting qualitative
user research.
Qualitative research is all about nding stories. Meeting the
characters, listening to the plot lines for their goals and behaviors,
and from the way they tell their stories, discovering their attitudes.
Understanding breeds empathy which enables to generalize and
retell their stories as personas.
This chapter discusses three types of qualitative research for cre-
ating personas:
• One-on-one interviews the most common approach used for
personas.
• Field studies in which you got to users oces or homes watch
their normal routine, and also interview them.
• Usability tests that consist in watching people use your site
to perform tasks in order to learn about real life behaviors and
obstacles.
Regardless of the method, qualitative research is particularly
eective at uncovering things that you don’t know. It’s open and
exploratory, unlike a survey, which is best at testing what you think
you already know. Conducting any type of qualitative research,
it is vital that you are open to discovering new things that might
contradict existing assumptions. The openness is perhaps the
biggest challenge while conducting qualitative research. In the
process of creating qualitative personas, the research techniques
mentioned before are the primary source of segmentation model.
Through talking with and observing users, you can gather a list of
goals, attitudes, and behaviors that can become potential ways of
segmenting audience and this dening personas.
Conducting interviews
In qualitative research toolbox, interviews often have the best
return on investment. For most organizations, it’s relatively easy to
nd users to interview which is considered potential for learning
new things about your user proves to be enormous. Interviews
work best while conducting them one user at a time, because
the person will speak more freely and truthfully when no one is
around . They also work best as informal, loosely structured con-
versations, rather than as readings a list of rigid list of questions to
the user.
42
Serendipity and surprise leads to insights, and those are best
achieved by allowing the conversation to go wherever it leads.
Sometimes it is a useless tangent, but sometimes it reveals a goal,
attitude, or behavior that changes how you think about the users.
Every interview should be a unique journey through that particular
user’s story.
Who to interview
The rst question that arises is who do you interview? The short
answer is that you need to talk with a wide range of dierent types
of users as possible. Qualitative research is more about breadth
than depth when it comes to selecting interviewees.
Starting with a chicken and an egg problem. Starting to talk with
users from every segment, not knowing the segment yet, so how
can we get guarantee you’ll talk with equal users from each even-
tual segment? It is not possible.
But to start from somewhere, and undoubtedly some knowledge
about user exists in organization, interacting with colleagues.
Executive team members have some assumptions about the type
of users they serve. Marketing department could have an existing
segmentation with which they operate. The customer service,
sales, and training departments have direct contact with users
and can talk about type of users o the top of their heads. This will
help to arrive at initial assumptions about what type of users to
interview.
It is also benecial to interview at least a couple of power users.
These are the loyal customers who are very active and are likely
to have a great deal of feedback compared with the majority of
customers who are very active and are likely to have a great deal
of feedback compared with the majority of customers who might
not have strong opinions about the site. Power users are better
at coming up with new ideas and insights, since they are more
engaged and emotionally invested. For example : In a research for
a retailer, a team of researchers worked with many loyal custom-
ers who were a joy to interview, they learnt a great deal from the
company’s power users, including things they never thought of
on their own. Such as when the company launched a new web-
site feature enabling users to see which stores carried a particular
item in a particular size and color, people started using the feature
in unexpected ways. Interviews told that they would use the tool
to minimize shopping cost:
43
They would add multiple items to their shopping cart, then see
if there was a single store that carried all these items. If so,they
could have all the items shipped together for a at $5 shipping
rate, which wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Without interviewing
power users, they would have never discovered this insights and
its implications for shipping policies. (Mulder and Yaar, 2007)
So how to nd these types of people ? Starting with exist-
ing customers. With any luck, customer database has some
information in it that will help to narrow down the list of potential
interviewees. In case of nding more information, creating a
screener is a part of the recruiting process. Selecting
interviewees by either calling many of them and asking them the
screener questions, or by emailing an invitation including these
key questions to a large list of users to see who responds with
answers that match the selected criteria.
Quick useful notes for screener -
• Making the subject line as specic as possible to avoid spam
lters.
• Making sure that the email comes from an email address the
user recognize or is aware of.
• Incentives are a great way to attract more interview candi-
dates. For example a gift card or special oer.
• Specifying the dates for when the user need to reply will they
be contacted for the interviews.
• Asking about their profession, to avoid people who work in
marketing or design are otherwise not “typical” users.
• Keeping the questions minimum, because a long email sur-
vey is likely to keep people away from responding.
Recruiting users from existing customer database can be
relatively easy, Ideally the aim is also talking to non-customers as
well or ever lapsed customers, to get the full range of
potential users. For this purpose, nding a database of registered
non customers, which is helpful as a starting point.
44
One of the inexpensive solutions is to use your friends and
family network. Sending an invitation to colleagues, which they
can forward to anyone they know who ts a certain prole, can be
very eective as long as you’re clear about what type of people
you’re looking for. The potential for bias is a bit higher. But still
friends and family network can yield many great interview
candidates.
There are also professional recruiting companies to nd users
for you. These companies, many of which will also facilitate the
research, excel at nding users that match a specic set of criteria.
As the list of criteria gets longer, the price goes up, as does the
amount of time it takes to work with the recruiter to nd the right
people.
There is one more key question about who to interview: How many
interviews should you conduct? A rule of thumb is to interview ve
user per segment. While interviewing more than 5 users, the rate
at which you learn new things decreases over time.
Interview logistics.
While planning who to interview, there is also a need to gure out
the logistics of where, when and how. You can conduct these
one-on-one interviews in person or over the phone. In person
interviews have the advantages of encouraging a better personal
connection (often resulting in more insights) and allowing to read
body language. The downside is the travel time (for the user or for
you) and expense. User interviews over phone are also advisable
as an informally facilitated phone interview can reveal just as many
insights as an in-person conversation.
Each interview should be an hour or less. There are exceptions to
this rule of thumb, but in general, it is most likely to start losing
users attention after an hour.
Interview topics
Because interviews leading into personas are more useful when
they’re more informal, creating a checklist of topics to be covered,
rather than a verbatim questionnaire to follow. It is advisable fol-
lowing default order, when running through the topics, but this will
vary depending on where each conversation takes. Moments of
insight more commonly occur outside of the prepared questions.
45
Running eld studies
In interviews,it is probable to know what user tell about their goals,
behaviour, attitudes. In eld studies, observing natural behavior
can be an eye opening experience, because as mentioned earlier,
people aren’t always conscious of (or willing to share) the truth
about how they use or what they want from websites. Some-
times this type of research is called contextual inquiry, because
it additionally contributes in knowing more context about where,
when, how and why these people use the service. Field studies do
double duty-they enable to observe natural behavior and typical
goals, but at the same time they help ascertain the user’s attitudes
and perceptions having to do with their goals and behavior. Like
interviews, eld studies occur one user at a time, but this time the
data comes from the user’s native environment-whether that’s
oce, a home, or even an “in the eld” location, such as retail store
in which we observe real-world shopping behavior.
There are two basic types of eld studies: appointments and
intercepts. Appointments are made in advance, like interviews. If
users agree that observation can be made, essentially tailing them
as they follow their everyday routine using targeted website and
channels to perform their common tasks. Intercepts are a bit
dierent, because there is no need to recruit users before hand.
Instead observing multiple users from distance without their
knowledge. After watching them for a while, approaching a
particular user to understand him better, asking permission to
answer few sets of questions as an informal interview. There’s
nothing better than going to where your users are, watching them
for a while, and then asking them questions in order to gain new
insights.(Mulder and Yaar, 2007)
Performing Usability Tests
Usability testing is a classic qualitative technique for
observing user behavior. Sitting down in front of users for the
targeted website one at a time, and asking them to perform a
specic task and observing them to watch where they
encounter obstacles. Users often supply their perceptions as well,
so in this way it is easy to understand both behaviors and attitudes
as output.
However, traditional usability testing often isn’t as helpful for
creating personas. Given a specic task to user, the test becomes
about user goals that is chosen instead of the users unique goals.
Because goals are so critical to understand what users need and
how to best serve them, usability testing may bias the persona
creation process.
Mulder, S. and Yaar, Z. (2007). The user is always right. Berkeley, CA: New Riders,.
46
2.4 Coding and categorizing information
What is a code ?
A code in qualitative inquiry is most often a word or short phrase
that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-
capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of
language-based or visual data.The data can consist of interview
transcripts, participant observation eld notes, journals,
documents, literature, artifacts, photographs, video, websites,
e-mail correspondence, and so on.The portion of data to be coded
during First Cycle coding processes can range in magnitude
from a single word to a full sentence to an entire page of text to a
stream of moving images. In Second Cycle coding processes, the
portions coded can be the exact same units, longer passages of
text, and even a reconguration of the codes themselves
developed thus far. Just as a title represents and captures a book
or lm or poem’s primary content and essence, so does a code
represent and capture a datum’s primary content and essence. A
code can summarize or condense data, not simply reduce it.
Coding as a heuristic
The majority of qualitative researchers will code their data both
during and after collection as an analytic tactic, for coding is anal-
ysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 56). Diering perspectives,
however, attest that “Coding and analysis are not synonymous,
though coding is a crucial aspect of analysis” (Basit, 2003, p. 145).
Coding is a heuristic (from the Greek, meaning “to discover”) – an
exploratory problem-solving technique without specic formulas
to follow. Coding is only the initial step toward an even more
rigorous and evocative analysis and interpretation for a report.
Coding is not just labeling, it is linking:“It leads you from the data
to the idea, and from the idea to all the data pertaining to that
idea”
Coding and Categorizing
To codify is to arrange things in a systematic order, to make some
thing part of a system or classication, to categorize. When codes
47
are applied and reapplied to qualitative data, you are codify-
ing – a process that permits data to be “segregated, grouped,
regrouped and relinked in order to consolidate meaning and
explanation” (Grbich, 2007, p. 21). Bernard (2006) succinctly states
that analysis “is the search for patterns in data and for ideas that
help explain why those patterns are there in the rst place”. Coding
is thus a method that enables you to organize and group
similarly coded data into categories or “families” because they
share some characteristics – the beginning of a pattern .
The codebook or code list
Since the number of codes can accumulate quite quickly and
change as analysis progresses, it is easy by keeping a record of
your emergent codes in a separate le as a code book a
compilation of the codes, their content descriptions, and a brief
data example for reference. CAQDAS (Computer assisted quality
data analysis software) programs, by default, will maintain a list
of codes you have created for the project and provide space to
dene them. This can be reviewed periodically – both on the
monitor screen and on hard copy – as coding progresses to
assess its current contents and possible evolution.
Maintaining this list provides an analytic opportunity to organize
and reorganize the codes into major categories and
subcategories. This management technique also provides a
comparative list if working with multiple participants and sites.
Codebooks or CAQDAS code lists become especially critical as
a set of coding standards when multiple team members work
together on the same project’s data.
CAQDAS, unlike the human mind, can maintain and permit you to
organize evolving and potentially complex coding systems into
such formats as hierarchies and networks for “at a glance” user
reference.
Another one of CAQDAS’s advantages over manual
paper-and-pencil coding and analysis is its search and querying
abilities to quickly collect and display key words and phrases
and similarly-coded data for examination. Searches or queries of
coded passages can even nd where particular codes co-occur,
overlap, appear in a sequence, or lie in proximity to each other.
These search functions can perform such actions as retrieve, lter,
group, link, and compare, enabling the researcher to perform such
human actions as infer, make connections, identify patterns and
relationships, interpret, and build theory with the data.
48
Coding collaboratively
Multiple minds bring multiple ways of analyzing and interpreting
the data:“a research team builds codes and coding builds a team
through the creation of shared interpretation and understanding of
the phenomenon being studied” (Weston et al., 2001, p. 382).
Those conducting action or community-based research can invite
the study’s participants/stakeholders themselves into the analytic
process as a collaborative venture to provide a sense of ownership
and investment in data analysis and its consequent
recommendations for social change.
Johnny-Saldan-The-coding-manual-for -qualitative-researchers-Sage-2009.pdf
49
2.5 Description of Persona and approaches
for creating persona.
What is a Persona ?
The most powerful tools are always simple in concept, but they
often must be applied with some sophistication. That is certainly
true of interaction design tools. Our most eective tool is pro-
foundly simple: Develop a precise description of our user and
what he wishes to accomplish. The sophistication comes from
how we determine and use that precise description.
The most obvious approach—to nd the actual user and ask him—
doesn’t work for a number of reasons, but the main one is that
merely being the victim of a particular problem doesn’t automati-
cally bestow on one the power to see its solution. The actual user
is still a valuable resource, and we devote considerable attention
to him or her, but we never let the user directly aect the solution.
The actual method that works sounds trivial, but it is tremendously
powerful and eective in every case: We make up pretend users
and design for them. We call these pretend users personas and
they are the necessary foundation of good interaction design.
Personas are not real people, but they represent them throughout
the design process. They are hypothetical archetypes of actual
users. Although they are imaginary, they are dened with signi-
cant rigor and precision. Actually, we don’t so much “make up” our
personas as discover them as a byproduct of the investigation
process. We do, however, make up their names and personal
details.
Personas are dened by their goals. Goals, of course, are
dened by their personas. This may sound tautological, but it is
not. Personas reveal themselves through our research and analysis
in much the same way that the sequence of tectonic events reveal
themselves to geologists through the study of sedimentary layers:
The presence of a fossil denes a stratum, and a stratum denes
the presence of a fossil ,but we discover them in the same way
we discover personas. We determine the relevant personas and
their goals in a process of successive renement during our initial
investigation of the problem domain.
50
Typically, we start with a reasonable approximation and quickly
converge on a believable population of personas. Although this
iterative process is similar to the iterative process used by
software engineers during the implementation process, it is
signicantly dierent in one major respect. Iterating the design and
its premises is quick and easy because we are working in paper
and words. Iterating the implementation is slow and dicult
because it requires code.
Main Characteristics of persona
Personas should be very specic.
The more specic we make our personas, the more eective they
are as design tools. That’s because personas lose elasticity as they
become specic. Giving the persona a name is one of the most
important parts of successfully dening one. A persona without a
name is simply not useful. Without a name, a persona will never be
a concrete individual in anyone’s mind.
A fully realized, thoroughly dened user persona is a powerful tool.
Until the user is precisely dened, the programmer can always
imagine himself as the user or allow the user to become elastic. A
completely dened user persona is key to the suppression of any
tendency for the developer to usurp or distort the user per- sona’s
role. Long before a single line of code is written, a well-dened
user per- sona becomes a remarkably eective tool for interaction
design.
Hypothetical
It is important not to confuse a precise user taxonomy with a real
person. Real people are of great interest as raw data, but they are
frequently useless—and often detrimental—to the design process.
The other major problem with real users is that, being real, they
have funny quirks and behavioral anomalies that interfere with the
design process. These idiosyncrasies are not extensible across a
population. Just because one user has a distaste for direct manip-
ulation doesn’t mean that all—or even a plurality of— users do. The
same works in reverse, too. Our real user might be fully capable of
getting over some cognitive bump in the interaction road, where-
as the majority of other users cannot. The temptation to attribute
such capabilities to all users because one very real human exhibits
them is strong but must be avoided.
51
Precision is essential, Not accuracy
As a design tool, it is more important that a persona be precise
than accurate. That is, it is more important to dene the persona
in great and specic detail than that the persona be the precisely
correct one. This truth is surprising because it is the antithesis of
the goal of interaction design, in which accuracy is always more
important than precision. The end result is to have a program that
does the right thing, and we are willing to accept some friction in
the system to obtain it.
Personas are the single most powerful design tool that we use.
They are the foundation for all subsequent Goal-Directed design.
Personas allow us to see the scope and nature of the design
problem. They make it clear exactly what the user’s goals are, so
we can see what the product must do—and can get away with
not doing. The precisely dened persona tells us exactly what the
user’s level of computer skill will be, so we don’t get lost in won-
dering whether to design for amateurs or experts. The personas
we invent are unique for each project. Occasionally, we can borrow
from previous projects, but because precision is the vital key, it is
rare to nd two personas exactly alike.
Cooper, A. (2004). Inmates Are Running the Asylum, The. Pearson Education Inc.
52
2.6 Approaches for creating personas
Research is carried out to better understand users, the rst
question is which research methods should be used ? since
specic methods are tailored for nding specic types of
information. One more way to explore the landscape of user re-
search methodologies is to classify them as qualitative or quanti-
tative:
Qualitative research is about discovering new things with a small
sample size. User interviews and usability testing fall into the
category, because they consist of interacting with a small number
of users(10-20) to get new ideas or uncover previously unknown
issues. Qualitative research doesn’t prove anything, as it tends
to talk with a limited number of people, but it’s very valuable at
uncovering insights that can be tested. It’s open ended and often
reveals things which are unknown.
Quantitative research is about testing or proving something with a
large sample size. Surveys and site trac analysis. With hundreds
or thousands of data points to analyze, looking for statistically
signicant trends and be much more certain that ndings accu-
rately reect reality for all users. Quantitative research can help in
testing a hypothesis which is uncovered with qualitative research.
Quantitative research is better at telling you what is happening,
and qualitative research is better at telling you why it’s
happening.
If qualitative versus quantitative is one axis for exploring user
research methodologies, another is what people say versus what
they actually do.
What people say is important because it reveals their goals and
their attitudes. Goals begin the conversation between users and
researcher. so it is essential to fully understand why user come to
the site and what they’re trying to do. Opportunity of improving
arises from after knowing user goals at rst place. Attitude on
other hand reveal how people perceive themselves and these
perception as well. Interviews and surveys are very common
methods for researching what people say, and for learning about
goals and attitudes.
53
What people do is just as important, since actual behavior can
reveal more about people than what they say. Behavior reveals
not only where they might be having problems(as in a usability
test) but also how they tend to use websites in general, which will
inuence design decisions.
The key point is this : What people say isn’t necessarily what they
do.
Considering, these two dimensions (qualitative versus quantitative
research and what people say versus what they do), it becomes
apparent how a few common user research methods support
dierent research goals and complement one another. User
interviews uncover qualitative insights into users goals and
attitudes, and surveys are useful for testing and validating those
insights.
Qualitative
(Insights)
Quantitative
(Validation)
Behaviors
(What people do)
Goals & Attitude
(What people say)
Usability testingInterviews
User survey
Fig 3 : Four common research meth-
ods describes a complete potrait of
users (Mulder, S. and Yaar, Z. 2007).
54
Dimensions (segmentation) for Persona
Every user for website is unique. But in order to be able to talk
about who the users are and to act upon that knowledge, it is
important to group them into segments, which then becomes
personas. How you create these groupings is absolutely critical
and perhaps the most crucial part of creating personas, because if
the core way the personas dened isn’t clear or useful, the
personas won’t be either.
There isn’t one right way to do segmentation. Even with qualitative
research and analysis, segmentation is not a science.
Segmentation is an art of nding patterns and stories in data.
The entire segmentation process is collaborative and iterative.
That is the reason it is always advisable to collaborate with one or
more research for the process of analysis.
The goal is to nd a way that is most useful for those who will use
the personas and what they’ll use them for. As earlier stated
segmentation is a collaborative process. Two - Three researches
get along in a room with a whiteboard. Positioning dierent seg-
ments according to their behaviour and attitudes. Each dimension
in this process could be their personality or approach. To rate them
on number 1 to 10 this consists of two polarities on both the end of
the line. According to their approach, attitude or personality they
are rated out of 10. During the process of tagging the transcripts of
interviews, we better understand the type of personality it portraits
to us by rating on the selected dimensions. Usually, we tend to
improve the dimensions to be very precise and specic in terms
of name of the dimension as well as the contrast it signies on the
both the end of polarities. Purpose of dimension helps support
the persona to describe the personality and approach of the user.
With the combination of these dimensions, persona creates an
image of the persona in the mind of the reader to understand their
users very specically.
55
56
57
3.1 Double diamond process for this specic research
3.2 WYNTK Ocean line
3.3 Benchmark (Competitor analysis)
3.4 Discovery of Research Questions (Moderation guide)
3.5 Screening participants (sampling)
The design of
research
03
58
3.1 Double diamond process for this
specic research
Problem Solution
WTYNK
Competitor
analysis
Domain analysis
Research
questions
Moderation guide
Interviews
Screener/
Target
Clustering
Identifying
patterns
Analysis of
interviews
Personas
Design
hints
Tools used to Discover dierent perspective, allowing for a broad
range of ideas and inuences.
Domain analysis(WYNTK) - Understanding and identifying the
product direction, features choice, dierent tools to aid the user,
knowing how the company represents itself in eyes of the
customer.
Benchmarking - Conducting competitor analysis between 5
dierent companies of the same segment in the market. Also
analysing unique features oered by competitors.
Screener - Sampling is a process of selecting participants,
screener is a list of questions intended to identify your target users
and weed out those who aren’t suitable for the intended research.
In this case an online screener was sent to the database of the
company.
Interviews - Purpose of interviews in this design research is
deeply studying people, ideally in their context, Exploring not
only their behaviors but also the meaning behind those behaviors,
Making sense of the data using inference, interpretation, analysis,
and synthesis.
Fig 4 : Double
diamond design
process for this
specic research
59
Tools used to Dene specic design research and converging with
analysis and outcome of the research as design hints.
Identifying behavior patterns - Identifying dierent set of patterns
which are repeated solutions to same set of problem.
Clustering - Categorizing all the patterns which will arise during
the analysis of this research. Sorting and prioritising similar
information under a specic category.
Personas - Personas would be ctional characters, based upon
our research in order to represent the dierent user types that
might use the service, site, or brand in a similar way. Creating per-
sonas will help to understand users’ needs, experiences,
behaviours and goals.
60
3.2 WYNTK Oceanline (What you need to
know)
From the website
Oceanline oers small luxury ships designed for those who enjoy
the thrill of discovery while indulging mind and body in the most
lavish surroundings imaginable. All accommodations are spacious,
ocean-view suites that include butler service and private verandas.
Oceanline voyages and cruise expeditions sail to over 900
destinations on all seven continents, more than any other cruise
line.
Market research on Brand positioning was conducted previously in
2017. Above are the key ndings (insights) of the research conduct-
ed by the company. These results were useful for having a prelimi-
nary background research about the company.
Key ndings
Brand positioning_Qualitative (2017)
• Dichotomy in the meaning of holidays among participants
(travellers)
- Vacation=Relaxation Vs Trip=Experiences
• Oceanline customers are considered as very upper-end.
(Guests refer to us as 5 or 6 stars, high-end, upscale, top-of-
the-line)
• From the interviews oceanline stands for Service above-all:
- The attentive, accommodating service. (pampered)
- Extremely personal and friendly service.
- The small, intimate, exible atmosphere. (no lines)
- Like-minded guests, who tend to also be cosmopolitan
and international.
• Oceanline ownership: Reactions to the “independentlyowned”
factor were mixed:
- On the whole, the ‘independent/ local’ trend is only
interesting if you truly are “small”.
- Oceanline is too big of an operation to be truly “small
and independent”.
61
Brand positioning Quantitative (2017)
- Research consist in an Online Survey to gauge overall
perceptions and appeal of Oceanline. Deployed on two key
audiences:
• Past Oceanline Guests (466 participants)
• Prospects (14 competitors Cruisers, 164 Non-Cruisers)
- Attitudes by segment:
• Past Guests want to feel pampered when on vacation — no
experience eating and sleeping like a local.
• Competitor Cruisers are far more likely to have caught the
travel bug at an early age. like Past Guests, they like to feel
pampered on vacation.
• Cruise Considerers are more apt to study the history of the
destination they visit before arriving.
• Cruise Rejectors are more likely to want to eat, sleep, and live
like a local while traveling — which explains their rejection of
our way of travel.
- The quantitative research shows a dierence between Classic
traveller VS Expedition traveller
• Both likely consider a cruise as an holiday (38%) .Booking holi-
days with a focus on Cruises.
• Past guest: 21% by phone / 22% on my own online / 39% on
my own others / 14% Via Travel agent online / 12% via travel
agent in-person.
• Competitor cruisers: 15% by phone / 33% on my own online /
23% on my own other / 8% via travel agent by phone / 12% via
travel agent online / 7% via travel agent in-person.
- Target audience - Older Gen X/Baby boomers/Silent
generations
62
- Both will spend time disproportionately on international travel.
- Both have mix of Retired and working Full-Time
- Both have high propensity to be married (Travelling in couple)
- Major Cruise barriers and hesitations for non Oceanline guest
• Feeling trapped, Being stuck with same people for a period of
time, Missing true cultural experience.
- Need of digital communication for motivating non Oceanline
guest.
- Following insights are extract with Scout (A proprietary research
tool specically designed to uncover ever-changing consumer
attitudes, media usage and technology adoption)
• The journey is shorter than we think - there is a massive op-
portunity to convert audiences within one year.
• Planning the trip is beloved, and is a key stage in the consum-
er journey we can rally behind.
• Signicant others are the moment of truth.
• The mindset is destination rst, and the logistics are built
around that.
• They are heavy TV viewers and digital touch points collectively
rand 2nd.
• Hunger for thought leadership drivers long form content
consumption.
• They are becoming more tech-forward.
63
3.3 Benchmark (Competitor analysis)
Benchmarking is the process of comparing the interest/research
of company against others in the same industry or in a
broader market place.It is a form of competitive analysis that can
be used to understand company’s performance in a specic
market segment, relative to peers to help the company to set
growth goals and uncover industry trends. A variety of KPIs can be
used in benchmarking. Competitor analysis means to know what
the product or service is like at back of hand and stacking that up
against the competition out with the other competitions.Purpose
of competitor analysis are :
• Highlighting usability problems.
• Understanding where the product/service stands in the
market.
• Planning the design process.
• Knowing strengths and weaknesses of competition.
List of Competitor cruises for Oceanline :
• Azmara club cruises
• Carnival
• Celebrity Cruises
• Celebrity Expedition (Galapagos)
• Crystal
• Cunard
• Disney Cruise Line
• Quark Expeditions
• Lindblad National Geographic
• Noble Calendonia
• Oceania
• P&O Cruises
• Ponant
• Princess Cruises
• Regent Seven Seas
• Scenic Cruises
• Seabourn
• Viking River Cruises
As stated before in the introduction, Oceanline oers itineraries
of expedition as well as classic cruises, so it was necessary to
do competitor analysis for both the type of companies. During
initial background research it was discovered that there are several
companies who just oers classic packages or expedition. On this
basis there was an opportunity for analysing both types of com-
petitor cruises in the same sector. Analysing intotal 5 competitor
cruises including Oceanline cruise. Competitor analysis is carried
out on basis of their website. Aim was to understand information
architecture of various content type such as website navigation,
what information the company presents with photos, videos and
maps as well as the features and communication the company
provides through the touchpoint of website.
64
Find a
cruise
Why
Oceanline
Destinations Ships Onboard Ashore Oceanline
Expeditions
-Specic
Destinations
Voyages
Silver Cloud
Silver
Discoverer
Silver
Explorer
Silver
Explorer
Silver
Galapagos
Silver Moon
Personalised
services
All inclusive
cruises
Luxury ocean
view suites
Fine dining
Spa and
tness
Excursions
Land
programmes
Hotels and
transfers
- -
1.OCEAN
LINE
CONTENT TYPE - WEBSITE NAVIGATION
MAIN MENU
Second
level of
information
Benchmarking between the following cruise companies :
Oceanline, Oceania, River cruises, Lindblad expedition, Quark
expedition
Silver
Galapagos
65
Silver Muse
Silver
Shadow
Silver
Spirit
Silver
Whisper
Silver
Wind
Ships
Onboard
luxury
Destinations
Departure
date
Ships
Services
Fine dining
Overview of
suites
Ships &
Destinations
All destination
will details
Available
amenities Special
arrangements
Details of
destinations
Content
discription
Table 1 :
Representing
Website navigation
(Main menu) for
Oceanline
66
Plan your
cruise
Explore
ashore
Onboard
experience
Ultimate
value
Find a cruise Explore our
ships
Experience
Included
Amenities
Special
Oers
Oceania club
benits
Excursion
packages
Beverage
and wine
packages
All
destinations
Claudine
Pepin cruise
Jacques
Pepin cruise
Oceania
club reunion
Cruise
Hotel
programmes
Find a shore
excursion
Land Tour
series
Culinart
discovery
tours
Wellness
tours
Wellness :
Mind, Body &
Soul
The nest
cruisine at sea
Enrichment
2.OCEANIA CONTENT TYPE - WEBSITE NAVIGATION
MAIN MENU
Second
level of
information
67
Find a cruise Dierent
experience
provided
Value for
services
Region
Ports
Oers
Month Amenities
present on
board
Oerings
Content
discription
Table 2: :
Representing Websitenavigation
(Main menu) for Oceania
(Oceaniacruises.com, 2019)
68
Cruises Ships Why
viking
My trips Videos Search
Find a
cruise
The viking
Dierence
Did you know
My Viking
Journey
Updates on
current
sailings
Trave l
information
All services
Why Viking
Cruise
itineraries
Destination
insights
Ships
All
-All Ships
3. RIVER
CRUISES
CONTENT TYPE -WEBSITE NAVIGATION
MAIN MENU
Second
level of
information
Viking Star
Viking Sea
Viking Sky
Viking Sun
Viking Orion
Scandinavia &
North Europe
The Americans
Meditterranean
Quiet Season
Meditterranean
Asia &
Australia
Community
News
Awards
Cultural partner
69
-Highlights of
viking river
- Experience of
ship
Search by
key-words
Content
discription
Luxury
Activities on
board
Africa
World &
Grand Voyages
Ocean & River
Voyages
River cruises
-
Table 3 :
Representing Website
navigation
(Main menu) for
River cruises.
(Vikingrivercruises.co.uk,
2019)
70
Destinations Why us Special oers Reservations Login
North America -
Voyages
Request a
reservation online
What’s included
What’s not
included
Reservation
terms & condition
Cancellation
Policy
Trave l
Protection plan
-
Fine dining
Spa and
tness
Our Fleet
4. LINDBLAD
EXPEDITION
CONTENT TYPE - WEBSITE NAVIGATION
MAIN MENU
Second
level of
information
Central America
South America
Europe &
Meditterranean
Expedition
Heritage
Guest
comments
Global
stewardship
In the news
The expedition
experience
71
Reservation
FAQs
Group travel
info
Solo travel info
Staying Connected
while travelling
Anity group travel
Private charters
nd a travel agent
Destinations
details
Jeopardy! & Us
All information
regarding the brand
The lindland
expedition team
Content
discription
Family & multi-
generational travel
Global Explorers
Program !
Expedition
photography
Tools for
exploration travel
Discounts on
travel fare
Expedition
Deposit
information
My Lex login
Travel agent
login
Anity &
Charter login
Table 4 :
Representing
Website navi-
gation
(Main menu)
for
Lindblad
expedition
(World.expe-
ditions.com,
2019)
72
Artic Antarctica Special
interests
Resources About
Expeditions Fly/ cruise
expeditions
Photography
series
Blog
Brouchers
Guides
Media center
Polar boutique
Videos
Why quark ?
Land
programs
Sustainibility
Expeditions
5. QUARK
EXPEDITION
CONTENT TYPE - WEBSITE NAVIGATION
Second
level of
information
2019 special
oers
2020 special
oers
2019 special
oers
2020 special
oers
FOOTER
Featured
guests
Sail aboard an
icebreaker
Our people
Our eet
Etc
Current
oers
MAIN MENU
73
Webinars
Informationabout
experience
Reviews
Content
discription
Details of
expedition
My Lex login
Trave l
resources
Photographic
general
Travel tips
Activities
Regions
Wildlife
Voyages
Reviews
Travel tips
Activities
Regions
Wildlife
Voyages
Contact us
About the
brand
Partner
resource center
Contact us
Quark
expedition
Table 5 :
Representing Website
navigation (Main menu+ Foot-
er) for Quark expedition
(Quarkexpeditions.com, 2019)
74
Request a
quote
Brochures My Oceanline Blog
Register
details
Registration of
new account
Account login
details
N.A
Destinations
Travel tips
Lifestyle
Steve
Mccurry
Details of
contact
Dierent
itenaries.
Land Tour
series
Culinart dis-
covery tours
Wellness
tours
Etc.
N.A
Terms &
conditions
About Ocean-
line
Trave l
information
Other
resources
1.OCEAN
LINE
Content
discription
CONTENT TYPE- WEBSITE NAVIGATION
FOOTER
Second
level of
menu
SECONDARY MENU
Table 6 :
Representing Website
navigation (Secondary Menu +
Footer) for Oceanline .
75
My oceania Manage
reservation
Sign up for N.A
Register/log-
in in details
Special oers
Request a
brochure
Request a
brochure
Overview
Booked
cruises
Saved cruises
Oceania club
2.OCEANIA
Content
discription
Second
level of
menu
Online login
Request a
quote
Request a
quote
Edit prole
Sign up
details
Account for
managing
bookings
Proposed
oers
Plan a cruise,
additional
information
Table 7 :
Representing Website
navigation (Main menu+ Foot-
er) for Oceania
(Oceaniacruises.com, 2019)
CONTENT TYPE- WEBSITE NAVIGATION
FOOTERSECONDARY MENU
76
River
cruises
Brochures Special oers Contact
-
Discount oers
for early
bookings
Information/
Contact details
Cruise
information
Registration
details
Etc.
N.A
Company
information
Viking river
experience
Viking ocean
cruises
Terms and
conditions
3.RIVER
CRUISE
Content
discription
Second
level of
menu
- - -
CONTENT TYPE- WEBSITE NAVIGATION
FOOTERSECONDARY MENU
Table 8 :
Representing Website
navigation (Secondary Menu +
Footer) for River Cruises .
(Vikingrivercruises.co.uk,
2019)
77
Brochures Daily
expedition
reports
What’s new Etc
- -
Upcoming new
itineraries
Destination
features
Experience of
expedition
Written by peo-
ple who have
experienced any
expedition
4.LINDBLAD
EXPEDITIONS
Content
discription
Second
level of
menu
-
Multi destination
features
Upcoming blogs
Order by mail About us
N,A
Destinations
View online People associated
Why us
Reservations
Even more
CONTENT TYPE- WEBSITE NAVIGATION
FOOTERSECONDARY MENU
Table 9 :
Representing Website
navigation (Secondary Menu +
Footer) for Lindblad
expedition
(World.expeditions.com, 2019)
78
• Destination.
• Experience.
• Ships.
• Overview of suits.
• Fine dining.
• Spa & Fitnesses.
• Activities on board.
Route of the
travel of cruise.
1.OCEAN
LINE
Elements of
content type
CONTENT TYPE - PHOTOS , VIDEOS & MAPS
Photos Videos Maps
Description
Experience of
destination.
• Overview of destination.
• Features of destination.
• Experience of luxury.
• Comfort.
• Leisure.
• Means of travel -
ships/zodiac boats.
• Start of destination.
• End of destination.
• Between stops. Table 10 :
Representing Content type:
Photos, Videos and Maps.for
Oceanline
79
• Destination.
• Activities & Facilities.
• Ships.
• Overview of destination.
• Features of destinations.
• Route of the travel
of cruise
2.OCEANIA
Elements of
content type
Photos Videos Maps
Description
• Destination.
• Unique features of
the place.
• Overview of destination.
• Features of destination.
• Beauty of the
destination.
• Experiencing the
destination.
• Start of destination.
• End of destination.
• Between stops.
3.RIVER CRUISES
Elements of
content type
Description
• Destination.
• 360 view of suites on
board.
• Luxury of amenities.
• Ships.
• Activities on board.
• Important landmark of
places.
• Luxuries with 360 view
of suites
• Ships.
• On board
experience.
• History of viking.
• Experience of
travelling.
• Comfortness of
travelling.
• Route of the travel
of cruise.
• Overall map.
• Start of destination.
• End of destination.
• Between stops.
Table 11 :
Representing Content type:
Photos, Videos and Maps.for
Oceania.
(Oceaniacruises.com, 2019)
Table 12 :
Representing Content type:
Photos, Videos and Maps.
for River cruises. (Vikingriver-
cruises.co.uk, 2019)
80
• Ships & Destination.
• Unique features of
place.
• Overview of suits.
• Interiors of ship.
• Route of the travel
of cruise
4.LINDBLAD
EXPEDITION
Elements of
content type
Photos Videos Maps
Description
• Expedition moments.
• Expedition
experience.
• Videos of people
from past expedition.
• Important animals to be
found in the place.
• Experience of the
place.
• Start of destination.
• End of destination.
• Between stops.
5.QUARK EXPEDITION
Elements of
content type
Description
• Route of the travel
of cruise.
• Start of destination.
• End of destination.
• Between stops.
• Ships & Destination.
• Unique features of
place.
• Overview of suits.
• Dining places.
• Overview of interiors.
• Expedition moments.
• Expedition
experience.
Table 13 :
Representing Content type:
Photos, Videos and Maps.
forLinblad Expedition
(World.expeditions.com, 2019)
Table 14 :
Representing Content type:
Photos, Videos and Maps.for
Quark Expedition
(Quarkexpeditions.com, 2019)
81
CONTENT TYPE - FEATURES AND COMMUNICATION
1.OCEAN-
LINE
Elements of
content type
Description
• Destination.
• Departure date.
• Ship.
• Destination.
• Departure.
• Duration.
• Cruise type.
• Ports.
• Feature type.
• Focus on
destinations.
• Photos.
• Videos.
Search results Website
emphasis
Tone of voice Fidelity
Programmes
E-commerce
Formal/ Direct
communication.
No. Not possible
• Stating
all the
information.
• Facts.
• Videos are
attractive.
Contacting
through call and
the booking.
Table 15 :
Representing Content type:
Features & Communication.
for Oceanline
82
2.OCEANIA
Elements of
content type
Description
• Destination.
• Month/Year.
• Year,Month.
• Region.
• Ship.
• Duration of trip.
• Ports.
• Special oers.
• Focus on
luxury/
• amenities.
Tex t
Search results Website
emphasis
Tone of voice Fidelity
Programmes
E-commerce
Informal/
Conversation
type
Yes, if member
of oceania club.
Possible
- Possible
through online
registered
account.
-
3.River cruise
Elements of
content type
Description
• Region.
• Departure date.
• Durations.
-
Importance
of travelling
through viking.
Viking as a
brand is
highlighted
Easy
communication
No Possible
- Possible
through online
registered
account.
-
Table 16 :
Representing
Content type:
Features &
Communi-
cation .for
Oceania.
(Oceaniacruis-
es.com, 2019)
Table 17 :
Representing
Content type:
Features &
Communica-
tion .for River
cruises. (Vikin-
grivercruises.
co.uk, 2019)
83
4.LINDBLAD
EXPEDITION
Elements of
content type
Description
• Destination.
• Months.
• Ships.
Expedition
destinations.
Search results Website
emphasis
Tone of voice Fidelity
Programmes
E-commerce
Direct
communication
No Possible
Possible
through online
registered
account.
5.QUARK
EXPEDITION
Elements of
content type
Description
No option of search.
-
Expedition
destinations.
Direct
communication.
Not mentioned
on website.
Possible
- Possible
through online
registered
account.
--
Table 18 :
Representing
Content type:
Photos, Videos
and Maps.
forLinblad
Expedition
(World.expe-
ditions.com,
2019)
Table 19 :
Representing
Content type:
Photos, Videos
and Maps.for
Quark Expe-
dition
(Quarkexpe-
ditions.com,
2019)
84
3.4 Discovery Research Questions
What is a research question ?
The questions that we have in mind that we would like the
research to help us nd answers to, they are not the questions that
will be asked to participants; we’ll derive those from the
research questions, they are specic and they focus on the
objective of the research.
Objective and Target
The focus will be on understanding customers mental models
around their travel discovery and decision making process, in
the pre-booking phase. Customers are the research target for this
research.
Having the context of domain background analysis, a small
workshop was conducted with the employees of the company
from dierent background of roles and responsibilities in the
company(Oceanline) as they have more knowledge and
experience of customer. Trying to understand the assumptions
that they have in their mind. By discussing and clustering these
assumptions, research questions were formed.
• Noting down the assumptions in a collaborative document
and discussing them.
• Forming questions out of assumptions.
• After discussing all the questions that arises from assump-
tions, clustering those questions in a dierent groups based
on their anity.
• Considering the research questions created together (ob-
jective of research), discovering who are the main customer
segments to validate these assumptions. For example - Loy-
al customers , Booked once with oceanline, New to cruise
traveller.
• Prioritizing important clusters of research questions.
85
Assumptions gained from Research Questions Workshop for
Design Personas
Cluster 1
• Searching for Geographic Location Details (seasonality, weath-
er, culture, etc.)
• Customers know geographic locations in detail.
• Guests explore the same destination dierently each time.
Cluster 2
• Looking for intense detail on what to expect from that type
of experience (attire onboard, ambiance of venues, photos,
videos, itinerary detail by hour on excursions.)
• Customers are concerned about the kind of people they will
nd/meet onboard.
• There is a lack of dierentiation in the cruise oering.
Cluster 3
• Customers have an experience bucket list driving their travel
decision.
• Customers seek a combination of adventure and luxurious
relaxation.
Cluster 4
• Friends inuence travel and holidays decisions.
• Friends recommendation is more important than family’s.
• Customers rely on trusted experts to help guide them on
planning.
• WOM (word of mouth) is key to destination inspiration.
• Customer reads online trustable reviews.
• Written reviews are not important in decision making process.
• Social media platforms inuence travel decisions.
Cluster 5
• Money is not their primary driver of their decision making
process.
• Customers are value-conscious, wealthy travelers who seek
out ‘deals’ that make them feel they have achieved ‘value-add’.
Cluster 6
• Expensive holidays are not booked last minute.
86
Moderation Guide
The eld guide (sometimes called an interview guide or more
formally, a protocol) is a document that details what will happen in
the interview. Creating this detailed plan is an essential
preparatory step. The interviews themselves never happen as
we imagine, but having a detailed plan is prepared to be exible.
It also creates alignment among the team (as do other planning
tools). In situations where multiple teams of people out in the
eld, this alignment is essential.
To prepare eld guide, it starts with research questions drafted in
a collaborative manner with the client. This is the step where there
is a need to translate “questions we want answers to” to “ques-
tions we will ask.” Of course, the guide also covers activities, tasks,
logistics, and more.
The general ow of most interview guides is:
1. Introduction and participant background
2. The main body
3. Projection/dream questions
4. Wrap up
Oceanline Cruises Design Persona Research - Moderation guide
Objective: To understand the inputs, motivations and require-
ments during the vacation planning lifecycle, specically to
answer:
• What are the criteria for choosing their next travel?
• How do they collect information on their next travel?
• What are the triggers for their decision-making?
• Are they willing to buy our cruises online?
87
Discussion Guide
Intro <1 minute
- Independent market research company, don’t work for any
company we’ll be talking about today
- This is what we do for a living, talk to people…
- Ground rules (full sentences, think out loud, be honest…)
Tell us about yourself <5 minutes
- Where you live, who is in your household (husband/wife, kids,
pets)?
- Tell me a little bit about your most recent vacation…Where did
you go? Who were you with? How did you plan?
- And where are you planning to travel to next? By land or sea?
Vacation Motivation <10 minutes
- Now I’m curious to learn more about ____ {potential future trip
or recent vacation}… specically, how did the initial idea to visit ____
come to be?
• When did the inspiration hit? How did you choose that
vacation?
• Who was involved in the process?
• Is this a common ‘trigger’? The same for other prior vacations?
• Share a bit about the sequence of planning events:
First Destination and then Accommodation or
Accommodation
- How much did you know about _____ before deciding to
vacation there?
• What kind of information did you already know?
• What kind of information did you seek out? Where?
• What kind of information did you have diculty nding?
• How did you gather information? {Capture keywords for
search}
• How do you decide if a source is trustworthy or not?
• How would you describe this information-gathering phase?
What emotion would you use to describe it? Why?
- What do you do with the destination information?
• How is it stored? Shared?
• Who contributes?
88
- Thinking about a destination you’ve already been to, was
there something that you discovered in the travel that you wished
you had known before going?
• What was that?
• Where would you have liked to have discovered it?
Booking <10 minutes
- Once you decide where and how to travel, what do you do
next?
• How do you nalize details?
• How far in advance?
• How do you narrow down options?
• What are the key factors that play into your decision on what
to book?
• Of what you’ve shared, what is most important à least
important?
• What role do specials/ deals play?
• Who participates in the nal decision?
• How would you describe the emotion of booking/ nalizing
the decision?
Future <10 minutes
- What trips or destinations do you have in mind for the future?
If any…
• Do you have a list of sorts? How is it organized?
• Are there any repeat destinations on there? Why?
• How many places on this list?
• Do you ever see the list reducing or are you constantly adding
as you visit/ explore more?
• Who contributes to the list?
• Who do you share the list with?
• How often do you reference the list? Why?
Online travel:
- Have you ever booked what you’d consider to be a luxury
travel experience online?
• Why/ why not?
• Did you encounter any positive/ negative experiences in that
process?
89
Future Expectations:
- Still thinking about the planning and researching that
goes into a If you were to repeat a past travel experience, what
would you do dierently about it the second time?
- And nally, thinking about the process of nalizing travel
plans, what would make your life easier?
Thank and wrap-up <1 minute
Thank you for sharing your valuable input!
Provide instructions on incentive…
90
3.5 Screening participants (Sampling)
This is much like a survey that is used to qualify potential
participants. It includes a mix of question types (including yes/no,
multiple choice, and open-ended), and uses responses to direct
the ow through the set of question.
Once nalizing a screener, the next step is selecting participants.
There are many approaches, depending on whom you are
trying to nd. Some organizations have existing customer lists they
can pull from (especially for consumers). Others rms may go to
their sales sta or other well-connected people for introductions.
For consumer research, it is always preferred to use an external
market research recruiting agency. They will use our screener and
either their own database or customer lists provided by our clients.
This is a time-consuming process; it always takes a week or more
to align on the recruiting criteria and the nalized screener; a spe-
cialized recruiting agency also can help to recruit the target.
Oceanline Web Persona Screener
Target Specs:
Recruit for n=18-24 IDIs:
All respondents will be:
• Age 50+ (at least 50% between 55-60)
• Income $200k+ USD (or equivalent)
• Net worth of $2M+ USD
• Traveled internationally in the past year for leisure purposes
• Use internet to be inspired, plan and research cruise options
Oceanline First Timer (n=6-8):
• One cruise on oceanline within the past 2 years (no other
Oceanline cruises)
• Natural fallout of Classic & Expedition guests – at least a 2-3
Expedition guests need to included in the interviews
• 80% from US, 10% from UK and 10% from AU
91
Oceanline Repeater (n=6-8):
• Have cruised at least 2 times ever and once in the past 2 years
• Natural fallout of Classic & Expedition guests – at least a 2-3
Expedition guests need to included in the interviews
• 80% from US, 10% from UK and 10% from AU
Prospects (n=6-8):
• Have never taken a cruise vacation
• Mix of open to cruising and competitor cruisers (Seabourn,
Regent, Crystal, Celebrity XP, Lindblad Nat Geo, Hapag Lloyd,
Scenic or Noble Caledonia – never Silversea)
• 80% from US, 10% from UK and 10% from AU
Legend:
¡ denotes a single select question type.
☐ denotes a multiple select question type.
Red denotes programmer notes.
Oceanline Guest Email invitation:
Dear ______,
We are inviting a select group to participate in a survey about
cruise vacations. Your feedback is very valuable to us and it should
take no more than 5 minutes to complete.
To participate, please click here.
By completing this survey, you will help to enhance our products
and services for all guests. Please be assured that all of your re-
sponses will remain strictly condential.
Thank you in advance for your time and feedback.
Best regards,
Chief Marketing Ocer
Oceanline Cruises
92
Thank you for taking the time to share some feedback with us.
To advance through the survey, please select the “>>” arrows at
the bottom of the page. It should take approximately 5 minutes to
complete this survey.
1. Are you:
2. Where do you reside ?
3. How old are you ?
4. Which of the following types of vacations have you ever taken?
Select all that apply.
Male
Female
U.S
Canada
U.K.
Australia
Others Term
<40
40 – 44
45 – 49.
50 – 54
55 – 59
Term
60 – 64
65 – 69
70 – 74
75 or more
Term
Term
Maximum quota 40%
Core - well
represented
Domestic road trip to visit friends or family
Domestic city trip
Visit to a foreign country/ international destinations
Cruise vacation (domestic or international)
Amusement/ theme park vacation
All inclusive resort (food, drink, and activities are
included in the rate)
Sporting vacation (skiing, hiking, diving, etc.)
Adventure/eco-tours/camping/hiking/backpacking
Rented home or condo
Hotel resort stay
High-end spa vacation
Something else, please share: _____
None of the above Term
93
5. And which of the following types of vacations have you
taken in the past year? Select all that apply.
{Carry forward list ever taken from Q4}
Term if foreign country/ international destination not selected
{If cruise ever selected on Q4, ask 6-8}
6. Which of the following cruise lines have you ever sailed?
Select all that apply.
How many times have you cruised with the following cruise
lines?
Azamara Club Cruises
Carnival
Celebrity Cruises
Celebrity Expedition (to the Galapagos)
Crystal
Cunard
Fred Olsen
Hapag Lloyd
Holland America Line
Lindblad National Geographic
MSC
NCL
Noble Calendonia TERM if not selected
Disney Cruise Line
Oceania
P&O Cruises
Paul Gauguin Cruises
Princess Cruises
Regent Seven Seas
Royal Caribbean
Scenic River Cruises
Seabourn
Silversea Cruises
Viking River Cruises
Some other line:_____
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
TERM if not selected
Once 2 times 3 times 4 times 5 times More than
5 times
94
* Carry forward lines sailed from Q6
8. When have you most recently sailed on the following cruise lines?
* Carry forward lines sailed from Q6
* Term if Experienced Cruiser and most recent cruise was 2+ years ago
{If cruise not selected on Q4, ask 9}
9. You mentioned that you have never been on a cruise vacation before.
How likely would you be to consider a cruise vacation on a high-end
cruise line, like Seabourn,Oceanline, or Regent Seven Seas. These are
highly inclusive experiences on small vessels (roughly 100-600
passengers) that take you close in to the center of the ports that
the ships visit and to more secluded harbours where big ships cannot go.
* TERM IF not at all likely or not very likely on both Q9 and Q9a
Within the
past year
1-2 years
ago
2-3 years
ago
3-4 years
ago
4-5 years
ago
5 years +
Not at all
likely to
consider
Not very
likely to
consider
Neither
likely nor
unlikely
Likely to
consider
Very likely
to consider
9a. Please consider another concept.
How likely would you be to consider a cruise vacation on a
high-end expedition cruise line. These are intimate vessels
(roughly 100-200 passengers) that can take you to the most
remote and pristine areas of the world, like Antarctica or the
Galapagos Islands.
Not at all
likely to
consider
Not very
likely to
consider
Neither
likely nor
unlikely
Likely to
consider
Very likely
to consider
95
These last few questions are for classication purposes only.
10. Which of the following best describes your marital status?
11. Do you have children?
12. Which of the following best describes your yearly household income?
13. Finally, what is your total approximate household net worth?
* Term if HHI is <$200k and net worth is <$2M
Single (not in a relationship)
In an early relationship (ie not talking marriage yet)
In a relationship and planning to get married
Married
Divorced/ Separated
Widow/ Widower
No kids
<13 years old
13 - 18 years old
18 - 24 years old
25 - 34 years old
35 years old or more
Under $100,000
$100,000 - $149,999
$150,000 - $199,999
$200,000 - $249,999
$250,000 - $299,999
$300,000 - $349,999
$350,000 - $399,999
$400,000 or more
Under $500,000
$500,000 - $999,999
$1M - $2M
$2M - $3M
$3M - $4M
$4M or more
96
14. Tell us about your dream vacation... Where would you go? Who would
you travel with? What type of experiences would you plan on this vaca-
tion?
Please spare no detail -- even tell us why you chose that destination!
CONTINUE IF:
- Over 50
- HHI $200k+ OR net worth $2M+
- Have traveled internationally in the past 1 year
- Have cruised with a luxury cruise line (if experienced) in the past
2 years
- Have cruised with SSC at least once (if SSC segment)
- Open to luxury cruising or expedition cruising if never cruised
- Eloquent and interesting response to Q15
15. Based on your responses to these questions, you qualify to partici-
pate in a one-on-one phone interview all about cruise vacations. Here’s
how it works:
Our partner will be in touch to schedule the interview based on your
availability. We are hoping to complete these calls between ______(date)
and ______(date). We will be using a conference line to connect the inter-
viewer with you the participant. We also highly encourage you to bring
your partner, spouse or travel companion to the discussion.
We estimate that the interview will take about 45-60 minutes for which
you will receive a $150 gift card (available as an Amazon gift card).
Is this something you would be interested in participating in?
{ASK IF Q16 “Yes”}
16. Thank you so much for agreeing to participate. Please share your
name and email address to send you the invitation and details!
All information you provide is only used for research purposes related to
this study and will be held in strict condence and will not be shared in
any public domain.
First Name __________
Last Name __________
Email Address __________
Time Zone __________
Yes
No
97
98
99
4.1 Target category of participants.
4.2 Type of interviews.
4.3 Transcription of interviews: (3)
Execution of
research
04
100
4.1 Target category of participants ( Past
guests, New to cruise, Competitor cruises)
There are two categories of customers that are identied during
the background research of the company -
Past guest - Loyal guest who likes to travel with the same brand
but to dierent locations or sometimes even the same locations.
Past guests can also be called as repeaters.
Prospect - Future customers of the company. There are two types
of customers in prospects. New to cruise (NTC) And Customer
cruises (CC).
Diversity in terms of geographic locations
The main target of the research is from USA, Australia and U.K as
the maximum customers are from these locations .
Interviewee Age Location
PG_01 60-64 years USA
PG_02 50-55 years UK
PG_03 60-64 years USA
PG_04 60-64 years USA
PG_05 60-64 years USA
PG_06 60-64 years Australia
PG_07 50-55 years USA
PG_08 70-74 years USA
PG_09 75-80 years Australia
PG_10 70-74 years USA
PG_11 60-64 years USA
PG_12 70-74 years USA
PG_13 60-64 years USA
PG_14 50-55 years UK
NTC_01 70-74 years USA
CC_01 70-74 years USA
NTC_02 50-55 years USA
NTC_03 50-55 years USA
NTC_04 60-64 years USA
NTC_05 50-55 years Australia
NTC_06 60-64 years USA
CC_02 55-59 years USA
NTC_07 60-64 ears USA
101
In total 23 interviews were conducted,
Past guest - 14 and Prospect guest - 9.
All audiences were :
• From 50+(Majority 55+).
• From US,UK and Australia.
• Earns $200k+ (or UK/AU equivalent) or have more than $1M in
net worth.
• Have taken an international holiday in past 12 months.
• Researched recent vacations online.
102
4.2 Type of interview
Semi-structured interviews
Semi-structured interviews are structured by topics, all these
dened topics are covered in most of the interviews but questions
may vary according to the conversation, although the sequence of
the questions might vary as well as the level of probing for
information by the interviewer. Semi-structured interviewing is
suitable as we already have some grasp of what is happening
within the sample in relation to the research topic for customer
behavior towards luxury travelling.
Even in a semi-structured interview, the questions posed during
the interview are open-ended as possible, in order to avoid yes/
no or rehearsed answers. Further, the questioning techniques
will encourage respondents to communicate their underlying
attitudes, beliefs and values. Interviewees might feel exposed by
questions (in particular where attitudes are probed in sensitive
topics such as political attitudes, sexual orientation, borderline or
illegal behaviour). On the other hand, interviewees might feel that
they need to present themselves in a specic way in order to t
in with their perception of the researcher’s requirements, or wish
to bring in their own agenda of life-topics that do not t easily
with the aim of the interview. For these reasons, it is important to
build a rapport with the interviewee before starting the interview
so that both sides can feel more at ease. Dierent ways of posing
questions and using probing and prompting helped to elicit more
information or steer the interviews.
Narrative interviews
Narrative interviews which is also known as unstructured
interviewing allows the respondent to tell their own stories in their
own words, with prompting by the interviewer. The objective of
the unstructured interview has been summarised as, ‘to elicit rich,
detailed materials that can be used in qualitative analysis.
103
Its objective is to nd out what kind of things are happening rather
than to determine the frequency of predetermined kinds of things
that the researcher already believes can happen. Using the tech-
nique of unstructured interview, in this research, the researcher
simply has all list of topics that they want the respondent to talk
about. And the questions are phrased and which order they come
will vary from one interview to the next as the interview process is
determined by the responses (stories) of the interviewees.
In-depth interviews
In in-depth interviews the aim is to obtain a more detailed, rich
understanding of the topic of interest. They usually comprise an
ethnographic approach and complement participant observation
or action research methods.
In in-depth interviews the participant’s experience, behaviour,
feelings, and/or attitudes may be probed deeply to identify
underlying concepts that the researcher analyses to generate a
theory surrounding the research topic. In-depth interviews are
more structured than narrative interviews as the topic discussed
will be directed by the researcher and they rarely involve stories or
life histories. However in-depth interviews allows the participant
to communicate much more freely and to provide more detailed
descriptions when compared to semi-structured interviews.
Sometimes interviewers do not reveal all the exact details of the
research hypothesis when conducting in-depth interviews, as this
may inuence or “lead” the qualitative material obtained.
104
4.3 Transcription of interviews : (3)(1-Past
guest, 2-NTC, 3-CC)
01 . Past Guest
[Moderator:Hello, good morning. This is ______(name of modera-
tor). How are you? Is this_____(name of guest)?
Past Guest:Okay. Yeah, it is.
Moderator:Wonderful. This is ______(name of moderator). Good
morning.
Moderator:I’m a market researcher here conducting this project. I
really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.
Past Guest: Sure.
Moderator: Okay. Wonderful. I’ll just give a little bit of background
and then we’ll get straight to it. Again, my name is______. I work for
an independent market research company. This is what I do for a
living, I talk to people about dierent products and services. And
I joke with just about everyone that travel is my favorite topic to
talk about and anything to do with cars is my least favorite topic.
And, yeah. So, today’s a good day. We’re starting o well. I live
in_____(Name of the place), with my husband and three kids and a
dog. And, yeah. For today we’ll be talking just very high level about
planning cruise vacations. That’s really it. Again, I’m here today to
learn from you because that’s something I don’t have much
experience in personally. That said, I’d love if you could just be
honest with me, tell me how it is, tell me what works, what doesn’t
work. And try to use as much description as possible because
that’s where I’m really gonna be able to take a lot of notes and
bring that back to my team.
Moderator: With that,____(name of the guest), I’d love if you could
tell me just a little bit about yourself, where abouts you are. I know
you’re Central Time but that’s about it. And who’s in your house?
Could we start with that?
105
Past Guest: Well, yeah. We’re at our second home in_____(name
of the place), currently. Our primary home is in_____(name of the
place).
Moderator: Oh, great.
Past Guest: We split our time because we have kids and grandkids
in____(name of the place). We’re in the process of selling our home
in ____(name of the place). Once we do that, we’ll be full time that
place. We also spend, oh, I’d say about three months a year in
Europe because my wife’s German. And we go back to Germany
quite often.
Moderator: Wonderful.
Past Guest: And we spend the rest of the time traveling.
Ali Moderator: Good for you. Wonderful. I really appreciate that.
Okay, great. Can you tell me a little bit about your most recent
vacation? Where did you go? Who were you with?
Past Guest: We had a Oceanline cruise. It was the end of
October. It was a 15 day cruise, Oceanline, started in____(name
of the place). Went to ____(name of the place)and ended in____
(name of the place).
Moderator: Wonderful. Great. That’s super. And who were you
traveling with on that cruise?
Past Guest : Well, my wife. I guess since that time, though, we’ve
been back to Europe just to visit family. But I don’t think that
should count. That’s not considered traveling to us, that’s just
going to see family.
Moderator:Is it an obligation?
Past Guest:Exactly.
Moderator: I know how that goes. Okay, wonderful. Let’s see, what
do you guys have planned maybe for the rest of the year? What
are some of the trips you have coming up?
106
Past Guest: Well, since you asked, my wife’s going back to
Europe in May for a week. And then we have a African trip planned,
our biggest trip ever. It’ll be end of June for three weeks. We’ll y
to South Africa, this is booked through AmaWaterways. We y to
South Africa and then we go onto the Chobe River. We’ll board the
AmaWaterways boat there for a little four day cruise on the Chobe
River. And then we’ll see Victoria Falls and we’ll go to Johannes-
burg and then we’ll end up in Tanzania. That’s a big trip we have
planned.
Moderator: Good for you. That is fantastic. That sounds lovely.
Three weeks sounds like a good amount of time. Does that mean
that you’re splitting it up between, sounds like a little bit of cruise
and then maybe some more land.
Past Guest: Exactly. We wanted to see as much as we could in one
trip. That’s why. Most people just either spend their time in South
Africa or they spend their time on safari in Tanzania or Botswana.
But we’re doing all of it. And the cruise thing is just very minimal,
it’s only four days. The rest is a tour.
Moderator: Do we have any other big ones planned this year?
Past Guest: Not so far. I’m always on the lookout. I’m always
checking the websites. I get emails from Oceanline and other
places. And I’m always on lookout. The China, Japanese thing we
did almost last minute last year because it was such a good oer.
And if we see something, we have the time, we’re both retired. So
if we see something then we’ll probably do something towards the
end of the year. But we just haven’t found anything yet.
Moderator: Perfect. That sounds great. Okay, wonderful. I guess
we’ll pick on this big trip to Africa because it’s one that you’ve got
coming up. It’s pretty well planned and we’re gonna focus on how
it all started. Thinking about the big, I guess it’s part water, part
safari we’ll call it, how did the idea originally come to be to take a
trip to Africa?
107
Past Guest: We did a river cruise in Europe on the Danube on
AmaWaterways and really enjoyed it. Very good company, nice
new ships, good itinerary. And we thought they did a really good
job, that was our rst river cruise ever. And our travel agent uses
him quite a bit and he knew we were interested in a Africa trip. And
it was between using Ama or Tauck, T-A-U-C-K, the tour company.
And we looked at both of them and the Ama actually covers more
countries and more areas. So that’s the one we went for, the one
that actually is more comprehensive than the Tauck tour. Although
we did a Tauck India tour last year as well and that was excellent as
well, in India. So it was a tough choice, but we think this itinerary is
best for us.
Moderator:Good. That sounds lovely. Great. And then backing up
just a little bit more, you mentioned that the travel partner knew
that you were interested in Africa. How did that happen? Why Africa,
I guess is what I’m trying to understand.
Past Guest: Oh, well, my wife’s been retired about 10 years and I’ve
been retired about two or three years. Since then, we just started
traveling. We did a cruise on Oceanline Middle East and Israel,
Egypt and then we did the India tour with Tauck. And then we did
the cruise with Oceanline. Anyway, it’s just a bucket list and it’s just
whenever we have time and whenever I nd the ideal company
and itinerary, then that’s what we do. Africa, we actually booked this
... they said you should book this a couple of years in advance so
we’ve had this booked over a year.
Moderator: Oh, wow. Wonderful. That’s a lot of anticipation.
Past Guest: Well, there’s a lot of planning, for sure, when you’re
doing six countries. Just getting there requires a lot of planning.
Yeah. We’ve been working on this for quite a while.
Moderator: Wonderful. Okay, great. And tell me a little bit about we.
Is it just you and your wife? And how much role is the travel agent
playing in guiding decisions and what not?
Past Guest:Well actually, our travel agent’s pretty traveled himself.
And he’s never steered us wrong. We’ve only used him for a couple
of years. Before that I did most of our, I was the travel agent before
that. But this guy’s pretty good and he seems to get us the best
prices. And I mean, we knew we wanted to go to Africa and it was
just a matter ... and he had also been on this Ama tour himself in
Africa. So he could give us a little heads up about what to expect.
And, yeah. He had a pretty good inuence on why we chose it.
108
Moderator: Perfect. That’s helpful. And then I understand you’ve
had a previous experience on both Ama and Tauck, right? Was
there a specic oer or something that, what triggered looking
back into them for the trip to Africa? If you could think back, did
you reach out to the travel agent and say, “Hey. I saw something”?
Or did he perhaps reach out to you proactively?
Past Guest: No. It was after he booked us ... the rst trip we used
him for was the Ama cruise on the Danube about two years ago.
And then after that I guess he discovered that we were interested
in Africa and they were going to Africa to get him doing this tour.
And so he gave us feedback and then I guess we went from there.
But, yeah. He had quite a bit of inuence on us choosing that.
Moderator: Okay, wonderful. Great. That sounds like a good asset
to have. Okay, wonderful. Let’s see. Thinking specically still about
the Africa trip, how much did you know about the places that you’d
be visiting before you started planning?
Past Guest: Very little. I mean, we’ve never, other than Egypt, we’ve
never been to Africa. We really didn’t know what to expect. I read
reviews and things like that and get a little idea of what to expect.
But we just know it’s, we’re there to do the safaris and all that kind
of thing. And the main thing was picking the right time of year to
go to take advantage of the weather and seeing the most, getting
the most out of your safari. When we’re going is actually the peak
of the migration and it’s also the dry season. Which makes, of
course, getting around and touring and seeing things a little easier.
It’s winter down there, but it’s the best time to go.
Past Guest: That’s, yeah, I gotta research that. Whole bunch of
research wherever I go, our China and Japan cruise I researched
the time of year for that as well. It actually turned out to be a great
time of year to go. Not as crowded and weather was still nice. But
other than that we haven’t really ... I researched a little bit into the
hotels where we’ll be staying and the river cruise, boat, things like
that. But other than that I’m just trusting our travel agent.
Moderator:Sure, sure. Completely understood. And it seems like
you’ve got good luck with weather, so I hope that holds in Africa.
109
Moderator: Let’s see, then. You mentioned reviews and I
understand there’s a lot that goes into this, right? Looking to
understand weather patterns and even beyond that, what kind of
animals you can expect to see in Africa, researching hotels, the
particular boat, what in particular are you looking for when you’re
conducting that research? Maybe picking on the reviews, right?
What kind of reviews were you looking for in that instance?
Past Guest:Well, I just like to, this company claims to be the
premier tour company and you just wanna check the reviews out
to make sure there’s nothing negative, red ags that would make
you reconsider using them. And I didn’t nd anything. Everything,
just like with Tauck, all the reviews you read on them are all very
positive. It was just more or less just to conrm what we already
knew. Just to make sure there weren’t any glaring problems that
we should be aware of.
Moderator: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Okay, great. Those
were reviews specically on Ama, then. And then, let’s see. Is there
any, were there any challenges in this planning? Everything from
looking at weather patterns to reviews and nding hotels. Did you
run into any diculty at all?
Past Guest:Well, getting to Africa, South Africa is not easy. We will
be in Europe. We’re going to Europe about a week early to get
over our jet lag. And then leaving from Europe to go there but still,
the choices of airlines are few and far between. And it was kind of
a challenge just to get to South Africa and get back. Other than
that, once you get there I think you’re pretty much taken care of.
I mean, that’s the good thing we like about using, when we did
Tauck was you really didn’t have to worry about anything.
Everything was pretty much taken care of for you, when you use a
good company like that. I don’t think, once we get there it should
be a breeze. And they give you all the heads up about visas and
cash you should bring and what diseases you should be con-
cerned about and that kind of thing. They give you a good, you
have a good understanding of what’s expected and what you can
expect when you go.
Moderator:Great.That makes a lot of sense. Let’s see. Again, still
thinking about this kind of research stage that you do during the
planning process, when you’re looking for reviews and when
you’re starting to gather information about the weather, how do
you go about searching for that? And if you can recall almost
literally what you type in, I’d love to hear that as well.
110
Past Guest:Well, it’s not, I mean, I don’t know. There are probably
more ecient ways. I just type in, “Best time of year to go to China,”
“Best time of year to go to see the Great Migration,” and you’d be
surprised how many things you can nd. I mean, that pop right
up. There’s no shortage of opinions out there, so you just type in
exactly what you wanna know and it just comes up.
Moderator: Yeah. Perfect. You’re talking to Google, right?
Past Guest:Yeah, right. Exactly.
Moderator:Wonderful. Okay. Great. Let’s see what else. Now, a lot
of this information that you’ve been collecting on, like you said,
migration patterns and what the weather’s gonna be like, what do
you do with it? And what I mean is, do you print it? Do you save it?
Do you save any links? Do you share it with your wife? What do you
do when you nd something?
Past Guest:No, no, I don’t ... I’m not that obsessed. I’m obsessive
but not that, I just kind of make sure that it’s not a horrible time, it’s
not the worst time to go. Or there’s reasons why you shouldn’t go
that time of year. And if it looks like it’s a decent time of year and
there’s a good chance to see more animals then that’s what we’re
gonna do.
Past Guest:But when we did the cruise it started in Abu Dhabi in
April. Well, they claim that’s their winter. That’s their winter but it
was 100 degrees in April. I can’t imagine going there in June or
July. I mean, it’s probably 130 degrees there. You gotta have some
common sense and look around and see how it is in other parts
of the world. I think we’re gonna be okay, it might be a little chilly
in Cape Town ‘cause that’s the very most southern part of where
we’re going. But that’s okay. And then once we go further north it’ll
be much nicer.
Moderator:Okay, cool. Awesome. Let’s see, then. Thinking still, last
question about this kind of information gathering phase, if you had
to use a word to describe it, how would you describe it? Thinking
about emotions.
Past Guest:Describe what now?
Moderator: The process of gathering this information, searching
for these details.
111
Past Guest: I’m just curious. Just curiosity. Just a desire to ... I like to
know what I’m doing. I like to be prepared. I don’t like big surprises.
That’s the main reason, that’s the main motivation, is you’re
spending all this money and spending all this time to get
somewhere, you don’t want big surprises when you get there.
Moderator: Okay, wonderful. I love it. That’s super helpful. All right.
Now, thinking I guess either back to the river cruise through the
Danube or even your rst Oceanline experience in the Middle East,
was there anything that you discovered while you traveled, and
I think you just shared a little bit about that, the weather in Egypt
in April, right? You read that it’s supposed to be winter and you
experience something very dierent. Is there anything else along
that vein that you wished you had known going into it? Something
that you might have liked to have uncovered in your research but
didn’t. But might share to somebody else if they asked for advice?
Past Guest: You’re talking about which trip?
Moderator: Any of your prior trips. Yeah, anything and I’m just
thinking Danube or-
Past Guest: Well also, I mean the Middle East wasn’t our rst.
We’ve been doing Oceanline , I think we’ve done nine, we’ve even
done Antarctic.
Moderator: Oh, wow.
Past Guest: Yeah. We’ve done a lot of Oceanline. But the thing
about, we’ve only done Windstar, which is a smaller cruise line,
and Oceanline. So I can’t really speak about the others. But this
last trip was kind of a pleasant surprise for us. The previous cruise
in the Middle East, it was a little less, as we noticed the crew and
the people that worked, serve you and that kind of thing, didn’t
seem as happy at their job as they normally were. But then this
last one that we took last November is totally dierent. Everyone
was happy and you could tell. It makes a big dierence when the
people that are taking care of you are happy doing what they’re
doing. And we were very pleasantly surprised that something
had changed, apparently, so that people weren’t grumbling and
moody and unhappy. They were, we had the best time on this last
cruise. I think it was ‘cause the crew, for some reason, had an
attitude adjustment or something.
112
Moderator: I’ve heard that before, unfortunately, both ends of
that spectrum. It can make or break, they can make your trip even
more enjoyable or have the opposite eect.
Past Guest:Exactly.
Moderator:Perfect. Great. Let’s see, let’s move on now to booking,
I guess. All of this has been about planning. How do you nalize
details? You’ve already told me that you booked this one pretty
far out, a couple of years perhaps. When you decide where you
wanna go, and I’m gonna try to play back what I’ve heard from
you about the trip to Africa. You worked in close partnership with
the travel agent to look at a couple of options for Africa. It was a
tough call between Ama and Tauck, but maybe if you could share
a couple of the details. You already told me that the itinerary on
Ama was better, right? Anything else, maybe this is, we know a lot
of how this one came to be, maybe it’s a bad example. But
thinking generally, then, about all of your dierent travels, how
do you make that nal decision on, we’re gonna do this and we’re
gonna go this way instead of the other way that we had been look-
ing into?
Past Guest:Well, I mean we chose Oceanline for Japan and China
and for the Middle East because we had traveled with Oceanline
so much. And we knew that we could, the Middle East isn’t the
safest place in the world. We wanted a company we could trust
and they did a fantastic job with security. And we felt very safe. We
even saw pirates.
Moderator:No way.
Past Guest: Every port you went, we did an excursion, you had
armed escort everywhere you went. It was, in Egypt. It’s a little, I
don’t know. Not scary but apprehensive, but then you see these,
they make so much eort to make you feel safe so you don’t really
worry about it that much. We just really appreciated how far, how
much above and beyond they went as far as making everyone
feel safe. And we feel very, whenever we go with Oceanline, we
know we’re gonna get a good, we think, value for the money. And
we think it’s gonna be good quality. And we don’t really hesitate if
see a good itinerary that we like and Oceanline’s gonna be our rst
pick unless we nd something, another company that might have
a little better itinerary, might have a little better price or something.
But so far we’ve yet to nd anything that compares.
113
Moderator:Beautiful. That’s helpful, it makes a lot of sense. All
right, _____(name of the guest). You mentioned earlier the word
bucket list. I’d love to come back to that, what you’re telling me so
far. Geez, it sounds like you’ve already ticked o many of what
other folks would have on their bucket list. I heard Antarctica, I
heard India or going to Africa. I’d love to hear what else is on the
bucket list.
Past Guest:Well, my ultimate would be a round-the-world cruise.
Maybe one day we’ll get to do that. But probably before that we’ll
do, we haven’t been to Australia or New Zealand, we haven’t been
to Tahiti. I’d like to see Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands.
And more of Asia. We love parts of Asia. We thought that was kind
of ... but we haven’t been too much of Asia, just China and Japan
and Hong Kong. There’s a lot of Asia we haven’t seen. Yeah. We’ve
taken a lot of cruise ships in the Mediterranean and Caribbean so
we’ve seen most of those ports. But there’s still a lot we haven’t
seen.
Moderator: Okay. Beautiful. Let’s see. That’s quite a, I mean, I’ve
heard much longer lists but-
Past Guest:Number one for me would be Australia and New
Zealand and more of the Asian ports. And what else did I say? Oh,
we haven’t done the Alaska cruise as well. We wanna do Alaska.
And let’s see. Maybe up north east, Canada and that kind of thing.
There’s so many places we haven’t been yet that I’m sure we’ll
eventually end up going.
Moderator:Awesome. It sounds like,_____(name of the guest), this
list is kind of in your head, right? Is there any organized bucket list
or anything like that? Or is it just-
Past Guest:Not right now because, like I say, we’re in the process
of moving or selling our place in _____(name of the place). Once
we’ve sold that and we get our place in _____
, the way we like it, then we’ll have more time to sit down and
really pick and choose exactly when and where we’re gonna go.
But probably for the next few months we’re gonna probably hold
o doing too much booking. But after, I see towards the end of
the year we’re gonna probably get real serious about planning our
next two or three trips at least.
114
Moderator:Okay, great. Great, that makes perfect sense. And then
I’m curious as well, it sounds like the theme of each of these were
places that we haven’t been yet or places that we’ve touched but
wanna explore further. Do you ever see yourself going back to any
of the destinations that were on your bucket list that you’ve-
Past Guest: Well, we did, I would love to go back to Japan. Japan,
to me, was fascinating. I’d love to go see more of Japan. I may
go back to China, I wasn’t too thrilled by the people there. They, I
don’t know, just seemed very fake.
Past Guest:And then see, I would, I think, we did India. We were
there three weeks. We did that so we wouldn’t have to go back.
India’s interesting but I don’t know that I would ... I mean, I guess if,
never say never. But I guess we might go back one day but I don’t
see it. ‘Cause once you’ve seen it, there’s so much poverty and
so much ... just breathing is dicult there. It’s the kind of thing you
don’t wanna spend a whole lot of time there, you can catch too
many diseases. We were lucky. We didn’t catch anything. We got
out of there in pretty good shape. But it was great that we saw it
and we saw everything but no big reason to go back.
Past Guest:I would love to do Antarctic again. That was amazing.
The only trick is getting there because you have to go through
Drake’s Passage, which was roughest trip we’ve ever been on. We
were in a small boat. But I would do that again because it’s just
fascinating once you get there. We would probably do more
Mediterranean cruises, even though we’ve done a few. Let’s see,
I’d go back to Japan. Middle East was, I would go back to Israel. I
don’t know about Egypt. But I’d go back to Israel. I found Israel was
very nice. I don’t know, I felt very safe there. Yeah. There’s a few
places we might go back.
Past Guest: That’s great. That’s great. Good. I learn so much during
these interviews. Okay. Wonderful. Let’s see. We only have two
more questions,____(name of the past guest) Thank you so much
for bearing with me. This next one is more about comfort with
booking online. I’m not sure if any of the experiences we’re talking
about are available to be purchased online but have you ever
booked any travel experience that you would consider to be in the
vein of these luxury trips that you’re talking about? Have you ever
booked anything like that online?
115
Past Guest:A luxury trip we’ve booked online.
Moderator:And maybe more importantly, would you be
comfortable doing that? If, for example-
Past Guest:Yeah, I don’t-
Moderator:Let’s say Ama was available to be booked on their
website. That’s what I’m getting at.
Past Guest:I wouldn’t have an issue with that. I mean, no. I don’t
think that’d be a problem. I book all of our ights. I mean, then I
book quite a few hotels when needed. Before we met up with this
travel agent I was booking most of our things. Yeah, I don’t have a
problem with that.
Moderator:Okay. Okay, good. Just curious, right? And then, yeah.
I guess it was just one kind of reective question. You think about
all that goes into the planning and researching these trips, is there
anything that you would do dierently? Or do you optimize your
process as you go? Thinking back to any of the trips that we’re
talking about and just the planning and the research phase, is
there anything that you would do dierently if you were to rebook
it a second time?
Past Guest:Well, let’s see. You don’t know a place until you’ve
been there. Once you’ve been there, of course, you’d say, “Well,
I would have done this dierent,” or I would have maybe skipped
this area or skipped this country or skipped that. But no, I mean
we enjoy everywhere we go. Some places more than others. But
would I have done something dierently? The only thing I regret
sometimes is that we weren’t long enough in Japan. I would have
stayed in Japan before the cruise several more days. We were only
there one day before the cruise. Yeah, I would say the only regret
is that we maybe didn’t stay long enough.
Past Guest: And that’s the one thing about cruises. You see a lot of
places, very interesting places. But a lot of times you’re not there
very long. Sometimes you’re only there during the day. Luckily
we got to spend the night in Hong Kong, got to spend the night
in Shanghai and near Beijing. Where else did we spend the night?
Oh, in Osaka. Which I love that, where you can spend the night.
You’re not as rushed and you take your time, you can see more.
Yeah. The places where you’re just there for the day is kind of
stressful and you wish you had more time.
116
But, yeah. I’d say the only thing is you don’t have, I wish we could
have spent more time. In Antarctic we had to y to Buenos Aires
and I wish we could have spent more time there before the cruise.
And seen more in Argentina than we did. But that time we were
working so we didn’t have much time. But yeah, the pre and post,
I see a lot of cruise lines oering pre and post things. I think that’d
be very attractive to us.
Moderator: Okay. Perfect. And then is there anything that would
make your life easier when you’re nalizing these travel plans?
Past Guest: Well, yeah. The last cruise we did was Oceanline. They
normally don’t do this. But they included excursions in the price of
the cruise. They actually included ight, transfer, hotel,
excursions, which they rarely do that. And that was very attractive
to us because the cruise, it’s easy to nd a cruise but then you
have to book a hotel, then you have to book the transfers, then
you have to book the ights. And then you have to book all this.
Oh, and then the excursions. It was so nice to have all that
included. And yeah. I think that’s what I’m looking for. I’m seeing
where they’re oering more and more. I think they have one I saw
yesterday, I can’t remember where it was to. But it was including
excursions and ight and that kind of thing. And I’m gonna
denitely take advantage of that when they oer that.
Moderator:Okay, great. That’s a great one. Anything to save you all
that research and planning. Wonderful.____(name of past guest)
those are all my questions. I really, really appreciate your time and
again a bit about the places you’ve been. I’m sure, I’m not sure if it
was that you heard from when scheduling this but we are sending
Amazon gift cards for the incentive for your time. Does that work
for you? We could alternatively just-
Past Guest:Yeah, that’d be great.
Moderator:Yeah. Have a great rest of your day. Take care. Thank
you.
Past Guest:Thank you. Bye.
Moderator:Bye.]
117
02 . New to cruise
[Moderator: Hello, good evening, this is ____(name of moderator).
Guest: Hi
Moderator: Hello, is this____(name of the guest)?
Guest: This is _____(name of the guest).
Moderator: Wonderful. Can you hear me okay?
Guest: Yes ne.
Moderator:Okay. Super. I’m having just a little bit of a hard time
hearing you.
Guest:Oh I’ll talk louder.
Moderator: Oh that’s much better. Perfect thank you. Super. So
thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I’ll give a
little bit of background and then we can get straight to it. Again,
my name is ____(name of moderator) . I work for an independent
market research company and I bring that up just so that you know
I don’t work directly for any of the companies we’re talking about
today. So I don’t have any skin in the game. I am genuinely curious
to hear about how you go about planning vacations. And the more
detailed description you can give me, the better o I’ll be. And the
more I’ll lean.
So, a little bit more about myself. I live in ____(name of moder-
ator) with my husband, three kids, and a dog. And yeah, that’s it.
So again today we’ll be focusing pretty exclusively on vacations,
which is one of my favorite topics so I feel like I can, for just 30
minutes be taken away from the day to day and hear about other
people’s experiences. So, I’d love to hear just a little bit about
yourself if you wouldn’t mind. Whereabouts you live and maybe a
bit about your household.
Guest: I live basically everywhere. I live in _______(name of the
place).
Moderator: Oh lovely.
118
Guest: Mm-hmm used to have a place in_____(name of the place),
and_______(name of the place), and _____(name of the place).
Right now I’m at my home in_______(name of the place). So, it’s
about a little bit after eight in the morning here. I have a wife and
two small children. One’s four and one is eight. I’ve lived in many,
many, many places. I came her to _____(name of the place) about
a year ago because I liked it and before that I was in _____(name
of the place) for a few years. Before that I was in _____(name of the
place) for seven years.
Moderator: Oh my goodness.
Guest: I’m pretty much anywhere I wanna go. I’m the CEO for a
company and we do agriculture technology. So basically I choose
where I wanna go and I go.
Moderator: Lovely. Fabulous. This is a rst, _____(name of the
guest). I’m a little bit speechless. This is amazing. That’s great.
Well, where were the kids born?
Guest: One was born in Canada. He’s four. The other one was born
in China and he’s eight.
Moderator: Okay awesome. That’s great. Well good for them. Fan-
tastic. So thanks for that. This is gonna be probably hard to sepa-
rate what is just day to day life for you all from maybe vacation and
dierent kinds of experiences. But I’d love to hear a bit about what
your most recent vacation was. A trip truly away, maybe interna-
tionally or out of the country. Tell me when that was and maybe a
bit about that trip.
Guest: The reason I came to ____(name of the place) was because
I liked it. I came here two years ago for a vacation for about 10
days. I’d never been here before. I don’t know how many countries
I’ve been to. Except for Europe. I’ve been everywhere except for
Europe. And I choose where I want to go because usually a friend
told me a it’s a good place to go and come take a look. So, one
of them on my list is____(name of the place). I haven’t been there
yet and I hear lots of good things with lots of people. ____(name
of the place) is on my list. And basically I choose places because
they have a good environment for people or usually they’re not
international politically. So they may have local politics but not
international politics. Because for Americans it’s just not safe a lot
of places.
119
Moderator: Of course.
Guest: Mm-hmm (armative). Like, one of my friends actually lives
in____(name of the place), he went to, and he’s a mathematician.
He went to India, so he went to Cashmere because he had never
been to Cashmere. It used to be a wonderful place to go. Then
somebody ran up and says, “I can’t believe you’re here.” So he
ended up speaking German the whole time he was there to make
sure nobody knew he was an American.
Moderator: Wow. Wow. Interesting. Yeah so I understand the
political climates dictating things. Great. And yeah, thanks for
sharing a bit about places that you’d like to eventually get to.
That’s a topic I’d love to explore a little bit further down. And I’m
curious just for point of reference, are there any trips that either
you or as a family have planned for maybe later this year or next?
Guest: Not yet. Probably to Panama. I mix my work and pleasure
together. So, I’m doing investigation, I’ll go to a country, see if I
like it, see if it feels good. And then add that to the list for a longer
term.
Moderator: Okay great. Lovely.
Guest: The next place is probably Panama.
Moderator: Okay. Great. So, maybe we can think about ... yeah I’m
sorry, so the most recent trip was, you mentioned coming to
Thailand, but that might have been a couple of years ago. Would
that be the most recent kind of big?
Guest: That was the rst trip here and then I liked it so we bought a
place here and lived here for a year.
Moderator: Right. Okay.
Guest: So, let’s see, the one before that we were in the US, actu-
ally we were in Canada. So we took a trip to the US and went to
the Olympic peninsula, took a look over there in Washington state.
It’s beautiful. We like nature. I’ve been to ... we’ve been to Hawaii a
couple times.
Moderator: Very cool.
Guest: It’s just okay.
120
Moderator: Yes no no no. This is perfect. It gives me a great idea.
And it’s interesting, with someone who’s so well traveled, this
could go a lot of dierent directions. So what I’d like to understand
is kind of impetus and how a destination comes to be selected.
So, maybe we can go back in time and think about the rst time
you visited Thailand or we can focus on the future. You’ve already
mentioned hearing lots of good things from a lot of people on
Panama.
Guest: The way I chose it the rst time was I was in China doing
presentations for the Canadian government in China. So, it’d been
about three weeks and I was really tired and needed a 10 day rest
because I’d been going day and night for about three weeks and
you get tired after that.
Moderator: Yeah sure.
Guest: So one of my friends said, “Hey, let’s go down to Thailand
and rest. I know where there’s a tea plantation, there’s absolutely
no technology and it’s quiet” And I went there. And it was the most
relaxing place I’d been in year. The only noise you could hear was
the birds and the insects, crickets, stu like that. And it was pitch
black. And it was wonderful that my phone didn’t work.
Moderator: That’s great.
Guest: No internet. No phone. It was just absolutely silence.
Moderator: Wonderful. Um ... that is so cool. Okay. And so, from
there, yeah I guess, can you tell me one more time about this
place? I’m not sure if I missed exactly what it’s called. I got there’s
no technology, it’s very quiet, pitch black. What exactly was this
place in Thailand?
Moderator: Okay, perfect. I was just asking if you could tell me a
bit about the place that you stayed when you were in Thailand on
this 10 day little relaxation. I heard all about it, no check, it’s quiet,
pitch black, phones didn’t work. What was it called?
Guest: It was called Tea’cher. It was T-E-A, and then apostrophe,
C-H-E-R. It’s a tea plantation, and you can nd it on Facebook. The
lady’s name is Jane, and it’s an organic tea farm, for growing tea.
Moderator: Wow.
121
Guest: And tea, and things like that.
Moderator: Fabulous. Beautiful. Okay, wonderful. I will denitely
look that up.
Guest: two, three, four ... let’s see. Four small cabins, and then
there’s also a larger one.
Moderator: Beautiful. Wonderful, and thank you for sharing that.
So, let’s see then. I understand a bit about that trip, and it was a bit
impromptu, right? Correct me if I’m wrong, right?
Guest: Yeah, it was just-
Moderator: Much planning went into-
Guest: Not much planning. It was just one of my friends said, “You
look tired, let’s go.” So ...
Moderator:That’s a good friend. Good.
Guest: Yeah.
Moderator: Let’s see then. Maybe, thinking about just a point of
comparison, a trip that maybe did require a bit of planning and
coordination. Where was that, and how did that come to be?
Guest: Usually when I have to go someplace ... like for example, I
might go to Vancouver, British Columbia. When I go there, I went
to China, and I chose Vancouver, British Columbia because I had
friends there. And then I look up the hotels in the region that I like,
and then I stay there. And then usually I have friends in those areas
who take me to places to go eat or wherever. Tell me where to
go eat. And so that’s very normal. Usually I have somebody who’s
already in that region. So, for example, that’s why I know Austin
‘cause I had a friend there, and he told me, “Let’s go eat at the
Magnolia Café.” So that’s [crosstalk 00:14:51] go there.
Moderator: Great. Okay.
122
Guest: Or in Houston, I would sometimes I’ll ... I’m trying to think of
other places that I’ve been to. Usually it’s because I have friends
in those areas. So they do the rst research and say, “This is great.
Come visit.” If I’m taking the family someplace, I don’t wanna have
to think about all the logistics, make sure that they’re okay. A lot of
times I’ll go rst and enjoy it, and if it’s comfortable, then I’ll come
grab them and bring them too in the next time. So …
Moderator: Okay. Great. And so-
Moderator: I’m sorry. I know you mentioned when you were talking
about researching, before you brought up that having the friends
that help guide recommendations, can you tell me a few specic
examples of where you would search for information and where
you would seek out detail on accommodations?
Guest: Sometimes I use Expedia. Sometimes ... oh, here’s a big one
that I planned. It was for seven of us. And so in this case we used
Priceline. And we went to Las Vegas and we rented seven rooms,
Venetian. And then, so in that case, we had ... we don’t normally
use an agent, though we could. And this one, we knew nobody
there. We didn’t know anybody, but we did [crosstalk 00:16:22]. All
of us have at dierent times been to Vegas before. So we chose a
decent price and a good hotel that we knew for sure. And like in
this case, it was the Venetian. But I’ve stayed in Vegas before at the
Bellagio. In that case, with the Bellagio, I used American Express
Travel, really it’s just cause they just took care of everything.
Moderator: All right. And why did you mention you don’t use an
agent?
Guest: I know that normally agents buy wholesale or package
these things, and then they push them. So a lot of times, they’re
trying to push you to go places. And I haven’t had a real good
experience of the things that I wanted to see, compared to what
I want to see. So, for example, the rst time I went to Shanghai
by myself, I got an apartment there, just stayed for 10 days. And I
knew no one; I didn’t speak the language at all. And I just showed
up after I had made arrangements online. I don’t even remember
how I made [inaudible 00:17:37] online. And basically, and then
after that, I went and found a tour guide to show me through the
next 10 days where to go and what to do. And basically, the guide’s
end up getting where they take you to get a 20% commission. So
those are basically where they want to make a commission.
123
Moderator: Yeah, exactly. So how did you nd that guide?
Guest: I really wasn’t interested in buying pearls. You know?
Moderator: Yeah.
Guest: Yeah. It was a lady. I found that lady on a website that was
called This Shanghai, it’s gone now. And [inaudible 00:18:20] the
kind of thing that you would look online to ... Reddit or Craigslist to
go nd a guide that could take you around and show you some-
thing.
Moderator: Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Let’s see. I’m curious now if ...
yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, and especially with the
example of Las Vegas. And that you visit places before deciding to
bring the family. So that fosters a form of research. Great. So if you
were to describe the process of planning a vacation with a word or
a phrase, how would you describe it?
Guest: First I would choose a destination or an area, for example,
Costa Rica or Panama. That’s what I would choose rst. And then I
would, for example, go look up on Reddit about the experts who
live in those areas, and they will tell me good things, bad things.
And you end up taking it with a grain of salt because there’s a lot
of people who just put junk on the site, just ‘cause they can. But
if you have 100 people that say this is a wonderful place, and you
have two that say that it’s a really bad place to go, then you can
make your own comparison.
Moderator: Right. Okay. Great. Wonderful. And then, if you were to
use an emotion to describe it, what would you say about it?
Guest: That’s it’s the feeling of ... usually it’s because I’m looking for
tranquility.
Moderator: Okay, interesting. [crosstalk 00:20:13]-
Guest: I don’t need excitement. I’ve had enough in my life.
Moderator: Okay. Great. Wonderful, yeah. And then I’m curious
about the details once you get there. So a trip like Vegas or
perhaps this future trip to Panama, what do you do next once
you’ve decided it’s Panama, where do you turn for information? I
get it that you read about ex-pat’s experiences on Reddit, but then
once it comes time to decide what to do in these places or not,
where do you turn?
124
Guest: I’ll look at their industry. A lot of times I’ll look at their
industry. So their industry system and what people do there. For
example, in maybe organic growing. So in Thailand it’s organic
growing, so I’ll study those industries and nd out what the people
think about it. ‘Cause the people might think ... no matter where
you go, the [crosstalk 00:21:17]. They’re happy, then you’re gonna
be happy.
Moderator: Yep. Great.
Guest: If they’re unhappy, they’ll let everybody know it if they can.
And you just don’t wanna go there.
Moderator: Of course. Of course. Great. Perfect. All right, let’s see
what else. How do you store all of your travel details,
conrmations, reservations, or just information you dig up on the
web while you’re researching? What do you do with that?
Guest: Usually I put it in my computer, then I put it in a folder
under travel on that particular destination city. So it’s all in one
place, and then before I go, then I-
Guest: All in one place. And then when it’s ... before I go, then I
transfer it to my phone so I have a copy on my phone.
Moderator: Okay great.
Guest: I also I’ll print it out and keep a copy in a folder.
Moderator: Okay, okay perfect.
Guest: In case one of other things didn’t work. Which has
happened often, so.
Moderator: Okay.
Guest: You know a lot of times you end up some place, no phone,
and your battery doesn’t work or your computer is ... or your
computer’s too big, it’s stored somewhere. And then nally, your
backup is your paper that you’ve printed out. Like on a paper.
Moderator:Got it. Got it. You’ve mentioned using sites like Expedia,
Priceline, and is that primarily for air, or is that also where you look
for accommodations and hotel information?
125
Guest: When I do air it depends on where. Sometimes ... like if I
was in Canada, I’d use something, I can’t remember what it is, like
VA or something like that. And it just gives you all the prices. And
the prices are pretty much the same whether they come from
there or come from the airline. Except for then like ights ... I think
it’s ights at VA, they try and stick on insurance on there you don’t
notice until later. so that’s like 80 bucks. You have to go back and
call them and have them take it o your card, so I don’t use them
anymore.
Moderator: Sure.
Guest: Google works well and it’s points you o to a whole bunch
of places that you have to go direct to their sites. I also use a
service that’s called Trip. Trip is like ... I use to use this called Speed
Trip, which is a China version of it, and it’s on my phone. And I have
all my air, like passport information, my travel documents and I
could just say, “Oops that’s me and I’m going with.” And the
prices were reasonable and I got points for it, and they gave it
back as dollars. They also had hotel information ... a lot of times
now they’re prices end up being double compared to going
directly to the airlines.
Moderator: Right. Perfect. Great. Lots of dierent sources then.
Wonderful let’s see. Yeah I’d love to hear just a bit about
maybe some of your future plans. I know you rattled o a few at
the beginning. But do you have a list formal or not, of places that
you’d like to eventually get to?
Guest: I have I guess I have Panama, Costa Rica, also on the list,
Uruguay. And ... Belize, I keep forgetting Belize. Those are all on my
list. There’s, so that takes care of that part of the world. I’ve never
been to Europe, so Italy’s on the list. And then like I said I have
friends around.
Moderator: Yep.
Guest: That’s ...
Moderator: Wonderful.
Guest: Instead of trying to do much boring just nd a hotel you
know nothing about, or whatever. We were in Malaysia a few, two,
three months ago in Kuala Lumpur, everything looked great. And
we got there going, “Oh that’s not what I expected.”
126
Moderator: Oh, no.
Guest: It was okay, we only had to be there ... it wasn’t what I was
... compared to what I saw in reviews. You know, “It’s wonderful. It’s
wonderful. It’s wonderful.” And somehow somebody published
that ...
Moderator: Okay, yeah. And so that’s an interesting point, if you
think about lessons learned from travel in the past. What kinds of
things would you suggest to yourself, if you could go back in time,
to either do dierently or research dierently about any vacations?
Guest: Sometimes you can get good brands ... and if you’re ... and
get decent prices on good brands. So for example my friend’s
came to visit here yesterday and he’s staying at the Shangri-La
and their rates are really great. I don’t know you know the Shan-
gri-La?
Moderator: I don’t.
Guest: It’s a ve star hotel like [inaudible 00:27:05] very, very nice. If
you can imagine a lobster buet for less than $40.
Moderator: Yeah of course.
Guest: All you can eat, yeah. We didn’t eat it, because I don’t eat
lobster, but I think that was on Friday night. But if we it would have
been ...
Moderator: Okay. Okay. Nope, perfectly ne, perfectly ne, that’s
great. Alright so last question is there anything that anyone can do
I guess I should say, to help make the process of nalizing travel
details any easier?
Guest: Mostly it’s ... most places Americans go where they don’t
need visa but if you do need a visa it’s very important ... so you
don’t end up in a problem, the internet is not always the best. So
for example my wife is Chinese, we went to Kuala Lumpur and not
but a week before, any Chinese citizen who was from coming from
Thailand without a visa. on arrival but-
Moderator: Oh, I can’t hear you.
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Guest: Oh, wait I had to get her a visa when we got to Kuala
Lumpur. And everything on the internet said that she didn’t need
one, that she could have a visa on arrival. And when we got there
we found out that wasn’t true.
Moderator: Wow.
Guest: Yeah in my case my family is ... three of us have US
passports, and then one of us has a Chinese one. So it was a little
bit of a surprise, they went, “Nope everything’s wrong, we changed
a few days ago.”
Moderator: Oh goodness.
Guest: And there was nowhere, anywhere to nd this out. There’s
no way to know.
Moderator: Yeah it tends to be little details like that that I hear
from participants that can make or break so, perfect. Okay, great.
Guest: We got through it, we were just delayed about 4 hours at
the airport.
Moderator: Right, right. Wow. Okay well those are all the questions
I had-
Guest: Great.
Moderator: Well good. Well thank you so, so much for your time, I
appreciate you spending your Saturday morning with me and yeah
so at this point we go ahead and mark you as participated in the
system and that should be it from what I understand. So thank you
again, I really, really appreciate it and I wish you and your family all
the best.
Guest: Thank you. Okay, thank you.
Moderator: Wonderful. Have a great one take care.
Guest: Alright, see you.
Moderator: Alrighty. Bye, thanks.
Guest: Bye, bye.]
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03 Competitor cruise Guest
[Moderator: Good morning, this is ____(name of moderator). I’m
the moderator for today’s session. I’ll go through a bit of
background and then ask you to do the same.
Guest: Sure thing.
Moderator: Okay great. Again, my name’s ____(name of
moderator). This is what I do for a living. I talk to people about
dierent products and services. I joke with everyone that travel
is my favorite topic and that will be our topic of today. We’re o
to a good start this morning. Anything to do with automotive or
car parts is my least favorite topic. Just not as exciting. I love that
today we’ll get to be taken away even just for a little bit. I live in
_____(name of the city and place) with my husband, three kids and
a dog. I don’t work directly for any of the companies that we’ll be
talking about today. I only bring that up so that you know that I’m
here to learn from you and in that process I’d love if you could be
as descriptive as possible, tell me why, tell me about the
experiences that went well and those that didn’t. That’s where I’ll
really get my strongest insight. That’s really it by way of
background. I’d love to hear a bit about yourself. Whereabouts you
live and maybe a bit about your household.
Guest: Sure thing. So, my primary residence is in ____(name of
moderator). I live there with my wife and currently my youngest
son who’s graduating from high school this year. He will be going
o to college in August and then we will be ocially empty nesters
and hopefully, or somewhat empty nesters and then transitioning
our main living out east towards the east end of Long Island by the
beach where we have a house and we spend most of the time in
the summer. We’ve been in the city for 25 years and I’m just ready
to say adios to it. Like I said, a graduating senior in June. In August
my other son is three years old. He’s just nishing up his junior year
at Boston University and he’s a lm and television major up there.
He’s doing well. So, family vacations and traveling to nice places
has been core to our family experience since the beginning. As the
kids have kind of separated and had dierent schedules and
certainly with my one son being in college, it’s been a little bit
more dicult for us to travel together as a family. Obviously we do
spend a lot of time together during the summer out east. So, we’re
kind of in this transition stage where they are doing their own thing
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and we get to do our own thing, which is actually not a bad thing.
I’m a tech entrepreneur so I’m an investor in dierent start ups. I
advise dierent start ups and that keeps me busy most of the time.
Moderator: Absolutely, I bet. Awesome thank you so much for the
background. Okay, I’d love to hear about your most recent
vacation, whether it was as a whole family or just the two of you.
Tell me where that was and when that was.
Guest: Sure, the most recent vacation that we took was with half
the family was down in Cabo San Lucas last March. That was my
younger son’s spring break. We went with another family. We
stayed at the Esperanza property down there. We accessed that
property through our vacation club, which is Exclusive Resorts.
We have 10 days, right now we have 10 days a year through them.
Which we typically book, we book at their beach properties and
usually travel then with another family or group.
Moderator: Great. That’s awesome. Thanks for that. I’d love to hear
about any trips that you guys might have planned in the future.
Whether they’re solidied or still in planning stages.
Guest: That’s a good question. My wife and I are going to go to
Europe at the end of June and combine a bit of business and
pleasure. So there’s a conference that we’re participating in, in
Genoa, Italy. Then we’re going to spend ve days, so that’s a three
day conference and then we’re going to spend ve days after that
and that’s still in the planning stages. So we’re trying to decide
whether we’re going to go to the seaside or maybe explore up
north at one of the lakes. But generally do something that we
haven’t done before because we’ve done Italy and Europe several
times. We’re still trying to gure that one out.
Moderator: Okay, awesome. Thanks for that. It’s helpful to have
just this context for us to pick on for the rest of this conversation.
We’ll be focusing the next 20 minutes on planning and
researching dierent types of vacations. We can reect on either. It
might be more fun to focus on Italy just because it is in the throes
of this space, but happy to talk about Cabo as well. I’m curious to
know in either instance, how the initial idea come to be. What was
the inspiration and how did the trip come to be planned?
130
Guest: Let’s talk about Italy because we’re still in the active
planning stages. The impetus for that is this conference that my
wife is participating in. She runs a disease related non-prot. She
travels quite a bit for work and this particular conference happens
all over the world. So a couple of years ago it was in Barcelona,
last year it was in Baltimore, that was a little beat, but typically it’s
in an exotic location which allows her to combine a little business
and pleasure post conference. This year, because I’m consulting
for the foundation on a particular aspect of their business, I’m
going to be attending because I’m going to be presenting some
ndings on some research that we’re doing. So, they asked me to
tag along. That allows me to tag along and that was the impetus,
we’re over there and our ights and accommodations are pretty
much paid for, at least for the time that we’re in Genoa, what can
we do? Let’s do something fun after that for a bunch of days.
We’re exploring right now all of the dierent options. Whether we
go further south to the Amal Coast, whether we’re going to ven-
ture out towards the south of France, which we’ve already done a
couple times, whether we want to go north to the lake and we’re
weighing all of the dierent potentialities right at the
moment. We’re a little, I wouldn’t say we’re all over the place, but
we haven’t, a theme hasn’t really grabbed us yet. So we’re still
trying to get a feeling for it. We both, we like immersive experienc-
es so we’d like to be, no need to go to super touristy places, we’ve
done all that in Italy. Being somewhere maybe a little bit o the
beaten track where it’s just not overrun by people that look like
us is always appealing. We’re trying to gure that out. Italy puts us
up and gives us access to the north, which we haven’t really done
on our past trips to Italy. We’re excited about that and I think we’re
probably leaning that way.
Moderator: Great so I’m curious about a couple things here. What
is the appeal of going o the beaten track and not being overrun
by people who look like us? Tell me a little bit more about that,
what makes you say that?
Guest: You tend to get a little bit more authentic experience in
terms of your ability to experience local culture and what the real
vibe of the place is. We haven’t been to, especially in Italy, all the
main cities. In the summer it’s just, you’re literally overrun and it’s
like being in the Hamptons in the summer. It’s just, there’s an inux
of people and everything is very crowded and people tend to, less
so in Italy, but it seems like you’re more in a manufactured factory
experience versus when you’re in a smaller town that’s maybe o
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the beaten track, it’s a less hectic pace and you have a little bit
more opportunity to experience something that’s a little bit more
authentic and not just manufactured for tourists.
Moderator: Beautiful. I hear you. Okay great, thanks. Then I’m
curious about literally what tools and resources are you using to
help you narrow down the possibilities? You do have everything
from beach to country. What research, what tools are you using to
help make that decision?
Guest: Starting point is always Google for me. I also really do like
cross referencing what I nd on Google with Trip Advisor which I
think is the de facto source for travel on any kind of local
destination. We also, where available, I’m always looking for input
from friends. But that input from friends will be more directional,
like you gotta check this out, I stayed at this place and then I’ll dig
into Google very much into sning out reviews. I’m a Google local
guide and then I’m also fairly highly ranked on Tripadvisor, so I do
participate in reviewing and leaving my opinions on the internet so
I rely heavily on those types of sources to help me, help inuence
my decision making.
Moderator: Great, I hear you. I’m curious if you can give me an
example thinking about Italy, what would you type in Google and
what type of results do you tend to click on? What are you, when
you nd what you’re looking for, help me understand how you got
there.
Guest: That’s a good question. My cousin was just visiting,
happened to be in New York visiting from Germany and we
actually haven’t seen each other for quite some time so it was
great catching up and we were telling him about our plans for
Genoa and he was like, well you gotta go to, we go to this lake,
and I think it’s called Garda, it’s something like that. It’s in the area
of the really famous lake which is escaping me at the moment. So,
he was like we go camping there and it may sound funny but we
just have such a great time, so relaxing, whatever. That spurred me
to take a look at that as a potential option of something that we’ve
never done in a region that we’ve never been to. It was starting
a Google, best full service camping lake Garda Italy as a basic
search, just to see what you get.
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Then I’ll go into the individual, if they have a website I’m going in
there to get an overview, then I’m going back out and maybe
going to Trip Advisor to see what the reviews look like and then
cross reference that with Google reviews and then looking at
general, maybe catch the general travel sites that have more of
the things to do when you’re in Lake Garba. That helps me
create this 360 of this is how the place is presenting themselves
on their own website, this is what people are saying about them
from these credible sources that I trust, this is what other third
parties are saying. This is what the whole experience is in the
general area. That helps me really with my, after doing that if it’s a
place do I even want to go there? If I do want to go there, then I’ll
drill down and really then start comparing in a region hotel versus
hotel or in this particular incident it would be campsite versus
campsite. So that’s when it starts to get a little bit more granular.
Moderator: Beautiful. Thank you. So, that makes a lot of sense that
process of triangulation. That’s passing a rst lter, is this a place
we want to go. How would it be dierent for narrowing down
accommodations? Whether hotel or in this case campsite.
Guest: Hotels are, this is a completely dierent animal. This is the
rst time we’ve even considered doing something like this. It was
basically on the recommendation of my cousin. They’ve been
going here for the last 20 years as a family and they just love it.
I’m actually considering at some point, when my empty nesting
becomes a little more concrete, of buying an airstream and hitting
the road because it’s something that’s highly appealing to me. So
when you’re talking about accommodations, I get really, really
specic into the reviews. Because that’s really, I’m really looking
for there, outstanding customer service and customer care.
Knowing that, especially in Europe, hotels are just not on the
same, what they consider a four star hotel and what’s considered a
four or ve star hotel here often times can be widely dierent.
You take that into account knowing that what’s considered
luxurious in the States and what’s considered luxurious in Europe
can often be two dierent things. You’re talking about
smaller room sizes, and funky bathrooms. You want to sni that
out through the reviews. I’m looking for evidence of a great experi-
ence, so the people that work at the hotel that are working hard to
make sure that you’re having a great stay, if a problem comes up
that they’re solving it, that’s really, that holds a lot of sway for me.
133
Moderator: Sure.
Guest: And a lot of that comes out, that’s certainly something I
usually touch on, on my reviews is I want to inform people how the
sta is. Sometimes more importantly than the room. The room is a
commodity, the way the sta treats you is not.
Moderator: Okay great. Tell me a little bit about what your expec-
tation is of service and customer care.
Guest:I guess the standard. You want friendly people, not acting
like they’re put out when you ask them a question. Trying to go the
extra mile if that extra mile is available to make a recommendation
or x a problem in your room or making you feel special by having,
you come back from a jaunt and there’s a half bottle of wine in
the room, those little surprise and delight things, for me go a long
way. But it’s really about having a great, enthusiastic attitude. That
comes through from people that are happy in their job and they’re
happy to be doing what they’re doing. You usually get that, but
there’s a lot of people especially in hospitality that seem to be put
out and they’re grumpy. That unfortunately ends up reecting on,
you could be staying in a beautiful place with a disinterested sta
and that disinterested sta has a lot bigger impact on your opinion
than the quality of the bed or the thread counts of the sheets.
Moderator: Beautiful. Yep, that makes perfect sense. I’m curious
now about this information gathering process and if there’s
anything that you nd particularly dicult or challenging about it?
Anything that you have a hard time really getting to the bottom of?
Guest: I’m pretty uent on the ability to nd almost whatever I’m
looking for. Sometimes it takes a little longer than others because
it’s just about putting the right search queries together. I
personally don’t experience any problems nding out anything
that I’m looking for. What you will nd out though in doing
searches, because I also consult with small businesses on how
they can be found during search, is that sites that should come
up for a search query aren’t and that’s because they improperly
position themselves with their keyword or content that’s available
for Google to to index. That’s where you’re like, why didn’t this
site come up and then you’re like okay and when you nally nd
them, you realize their website isn’t congured properly. That’s the
only thing is like, sometimes what you’re looking for isn’t coming
up and that’s only because somebody has done a not great job
of putting their site in a position to win for very specic long tail
searches.
134
Moderator: Got it. Okay great. That makes sense. I’m curious about
who’s involved in this process? Does your wife, do the kids ever
get involved in planning? Maybe not Italy, maybe think about other
experiences.
Guest: Yes, my wife will denitely get involved. Once we’ve settled
on a destination then she’ll hone in on what can we do, where are
we gonna eat? She likes to do research in that way. My older son is
fairly procient as well. Once we know as a family that we’re going
someplace, he likes to sni out things that might be interesting
to him whether it’s a charter cruise or an evening sail or snorkel-
ing or scuba diving. So we all, once we’ve, everybody likes to get
involved which is good.
Moderator: Okay, great. Help me understand, do you take the
lead? You said once we settle on a destination then everybody
does their own form of research. Do you start that? Is that also
collaborative? I’m curious as to why dierent parties get involved
in dierent phases.
Guest: Well I would say let’s take the Italy trip. Once we gure
out what we’re going to do then I’ll do the primary research and
present, let’s say we forego the lakes and we want to go to Sardin-
ia which we’ve heard a lot about, I think we’d be very happy there.
That’s one of the, on our short list of potentials. Then I would look
into Sardinia. I’ll look and create a short list of three or four hotels
that meet our criteria for accommodation quality and price point
and all those things I’m looking at. Then I’ll present that list to my
wife, maybe I shoot her an email, she’s got the links. She takes a
look at it and then we’ll start the pros and cons of each place to try
and hone down on where we might stay. After, I would say I do pri-
mary research and then the decision typically is made with some
type of collaboration or back and forth with my wife.
Moderator: Great, out of curiosity, any indication as to why you
tend to do the primary not her? Is there a preference or do one of
you enjoy doing that more so than the other?
Guest: It’s just the way we’re structured, our dynamic. I’m just
wired to do these types of things given what I do. I’m just good at
it and I’m fast.
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Moderator: Yeah. That’s great, that makes sense. Everybody needs
one right. Perfect. Then I’m curious. Once you start nalizing some
of these details, you mentioned you might shoot her an email and
you guys go back and forth so it all sounds like it’s staying pretty
digital. How do you store details if you do have an itinerary or just
research that you’ve done on these places, where do you keep
that?
Guest: That’s a good question. In the course of, if I’m nding a
destination, I’m nding a blog post about a destination or the
hotels that I’m interested in, I’ll always bookmark those web a
ddresses and put them into a folder so that they’re accessible.
Genoa 2018 Trip. I’m always dumping stu into that folder.
Certainly any back and forth that we’re doing via email that string
is captured in Gmail so that kind of acts as a digital record of the
digital back and forth. Then of course, when we’re together or
hanging out at night then we’re talking and maybe looking at
these properties together, her on her computer, me on mine same
room obviously and we start discussing it. That’s the way that
works.
Moderator: Yep. Beautiful. One step further, once you have con-
rmations and reservations and a few more details, how does that
process change, if at all?
Guest: If we feel like we’re in lockdown mode and we like the
place that we’ve identied and we like what’s there and all the
things we want to do when we get there, then we would probably
kick out to our travel agent to say, hey this is our basic itinerary,
this is what we want to accomplish, this is what we’re nding
online. Not can you do any better, but if you can do better great.
Then we start getting her, we’ll get her in the process if it makes
sense.
Moderator: Beautiful. Great. I’m curious, at very high level, you’ve
given me so much I don’t want to go back through this for many
other instances, but does this practice change at all if it’s a
completely dierent style vacation? If you can point out anything
you might do dierently? I’ll leave it at that, for any dierent style
vacations.
136
Guest: So let’s think about what would qualify as a dierent style
vacation. When we go to Cabo it’s completely dierent because
we know that we’re staying at the Esperanza because we have
access to that property. Then it’s, we’ve taken that out of the
equation, we’ve been there before, we know it’s fantastic. Now it’s
like, what are we going to do when we get there? That part of it is
more researching the restaurants. Is there any fun things going on?
Do we want to go shing this trip? The last time we traveled we
were with another family who the family is really into golf which
I’m not so much into anymore, but we researched dierent clubs
down there. So it’s more than about activities and food versus
trying to hone down on what place to stay.
Moderator:Beautiful, it makes a lot of sense and thanks for
clarifying dierent styles of vacation. I’m curious when you say if
there’s anything fun going on and I get, it sounds like your wife
might also take a bit of the lead in looking for restaurants and stu
like that, what specically do you look for in activities or
restaurants in a destination?
Guest: Again, we’re looking for peer reviews. In activities, if we’re
going to do something like zip lining or quading or anything that
involves a little, has a little bit of a dangerous factor to it, we just
want to know that the operator is reputable, that they are
concerned about safety, that they provide a good customer
experience. Again we’re looking very closely into that. With
restaurant reviews, if somebody’s not reviewed and they’re not
coming as recommendation from a concierge, we would be
unlikely to, I don’t want to be the rst. We’re always looking to
crowdsourced opinions on a place to see if it jives with our own
sensibilities.
Moderator: That makes perfect sense. I’m curious what word,
phrase, trying to get at emotion would you use to describe the
process of planning a vacation?
Guest: Word or phrase, for me it’s exciting in combination to
explore the possibilities. We love to travel. Travel is a thrill and a
privilege for us, so we look at it like we have this great
opportunity to do something we’ve never done before and that’s
exciting. There’s a lot of, it’s fun for us to do this research and to
really drill down and maybe discover something that we didn’t
know and go down this trail of discover that helps us formulate
what a trip would be like in a particular destination and get a real
feel for. That whole process helps build anticipation.
137
If you start doing it months before your trip, it’s exciting to talk
about it and think about it and watch videos about it and look at
the pictures about it and debate it. That process just adds to the
enjoyment of then actually going on the trip.
Moderator: Perfect, I hear you and this is why I love talking about
this topic. Great. I’m curious, you just mentioned videos, I hadn’t
heard that before. In what context would you use videos?
Guest: Video, given that I do a lot in that space, both for what I
do for my own tech companies and how I guide clients. Video
is essential, especially in travel. To help convey what, let’s say if
it’s a destination or a cruise ship, I know we haven’t touched on
cruise ships at all, but what’s that experience like, how does the
way they’re presenting their brand jive with what’s important to
me? Video, there’s just nothing that evokes that type of response.
Video versus written page, I’ll take a video any time. It’s extremely
important to me. I like video tours of properties. I like 360 tours.
The technology is just so amazing now that you can get a feel and
a sense for a place without ever having to step foot in it and that
part of it can’t be understated.
Moderator: Right. You mentioned, I think you just answered what I
was going to ask is, where are you getting these videos? You
mentioned on the property, so it could be a property site.
Anywhere else that you look to source videos?
Guest: Yeah, one of the beauties of social media is that now
everybody’s becoming a content creator. Looking, going to
YouTube and searching for user generated videos of a particular
place is very helpful. There’s so much content out there which is
fantastic. Also, social media. Going to Instagram, I’m not on
Facebook so much so I really don’t use that as, but just YouTube
and Instagram, you can really get a feel for what’s happening
through the lter of an actual guest versus what the property is
telling you.
Moderator: Beautiful. Yeah. Back to your triangulation. Great,
awesome. I really appreciate that. So let’s see, maybe looking at
this in hindsight, can you think of any travel experience that you’ve
had that maybe something didn’t go according to plan, anything
that happened that you wish, rewinding to your research and
planning for that particular trip, anything that you wish you would
have done dierently about planning to maybe avoid an
experience or just do something dierently? Anything you wish
you had discovered before going, let me say it that way?
138
Guest: Yeah I can say the only trip like that in recent memory
would be a cruise that we took from Bayonne New Jersey, kind
of terminated down in the Bahamas and then turned around and
then came back. It was right around, it was after Christmas but
before New Years, so the trip actually spanned, we had New Year’s
Eve on the boat. I would never, ever, ever do that again.
Moderator: Okay, what happened?
Guest: Just because on paper it sounded sexy. Hey, we can all just
drive, Bayonne is 45 minutes away from me, we’re going to drive,
park, get on the ship. We’re gonna leave and then come back and
none of that hassle of ying to a destination or whatever. The truth
of the matter is you spend most of the time at sea, it’s winter, you
don’t get into warm weather until you’ve been at sea for a couple
of days. Because you have less time to dock at port your time is
very truncated. We didn’t go, we went to horrible destinations
in my mind. Then you’re cruising back, you’re literally two days
straight at sea coming back, one of those days was quite rough
with a winter storm so half the boat was getting sick. It was just, it
turned out three weeks later the same boat got caught in 30 foot
seas and literally people were bouncing o the ceilings. It was just,
Royal Caribbean did the best they could, but they’re clearly not, it
was a relatively cheap trip per person I guess, but it’s not anything
that I would do again because of the type of cruise that it was and
the time of year. It would have been much better o to y to
Miami, get on a boat and hit some awesome destinations with
great weather instead of what essentially amounted to four days at
sea on a seven day cruise.
Moderator:Sure. Okay. Great. What would you have done
dierently to avoid an experience like that again, forgetting the
obvious the time of year and where you’re leaving from. I guess I’m
trying to get at, how did you ultimately choose that one?
Guest: Well that was driven by my mother-in-law who wanted to
get my wife’s family and kids all together at once. So, she just said,
hey this is what we’re doing, everybody’s coming, so there was
no room for a debate and it was ne.We had a great time being
together, however, it had been, what probably I would have been
doing winter cruises departing from Bayonne and really looking
for, and gone to all the usual suspects and really looking for what
is it really like? We probably, I’m sure would have found out seas
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can be rough, you spend most of the time a sea and the
destinations you go to are mediocre. If I was booking it, that would
have been immediately a non-starter probably within the rst half
hour of doing searches.
Moderator: I was surprised Rob, with all of the work that you do
how does this one slip through the cracks, if that makes sense.
Guest: Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of input, Grandma was footing
most of the bill, so she just told us to show up and, show up and
shut up.
Moderator: You gotta listen to grandma. Okay, perfect. A couple
more questions, I really appreciate this. You mentioned travel
agents, you do a lot of work and hand over some of what you’ve
uncovered and ask for them to take over from there, how often do
you use a travel agent and if you can describe when you do and
when you don’t?
Guest: We use a travel agent for more complex bookings, like if
we’re going multi-destination, if we feel our travel agent has be-
cause of her volume, can book more favorable rates or get better
packages than we can get online. For simple trips like going to
Miami to take my son down to school, we’re spending three days,
I don’t need a travel agent to do that. We just book through Delta
because we have status and we try to book through Marriott be-
cause we also have status there and that’s pretty cut and dry. The
simple things we do on our own typically. The more complicated
stu which can involve multiple destinations, dierent hotels, dif-
ferent ights, then that’s when it’s typically better to let a TA do a
lot of the legwork for you.
Moderator: Beautiful thank you. I’m not sure there’s much more
there. I’m curious about future destinations. Do you have any sort
of list, mental or formal that you guys have in mind of places, es-
pecially as you’re rounding the corner to empty nesters, right. Do
you have a list? Let me start with that.
Guest: Yes. Our plan is to river cruises, European river cruises are a
must. And there’s so many options there we’ve just started to think
about it. That’s high, high on the list.
Moderator: Why is that a must? I’m curious.
140
Guest: Just because everyone that we know that has done it just
loves it. It appeals to our sensibility of slow living. Smaller boats,
upscale experience, it’s all about chilling out and eating good
food and then getting o the boat to a really cool destination and
being able to see a lot of things and get back on the boat with-
out that whole big annoying cruise ship aspect of it. It goes along
with more what we like about cruising, which is our smaller luxury
cruises like Seaborne, which is a favorite of ours. That’s denitely
high on the list.
We’re looking to denitely go to, when we can, I don’t know if we’ll
be able to do it next fall, but certainly the fall after, pick a
European city like we love Paris, separate it from all the social
turmoil that’s going on there. Go live in Paris for a month and then
probably more in an Airbnb or short term rental situation and then
travel o from there to go to, to use that as a hub to then go to
other destinations in Europe with the idea of living in a
neighborhood and being immersed in that non-touristy lifestyle
and really getting to know a place. That’s denitely on the to dos.
Then we always, with the exclusive now we’re, I think for the most
part, all our friends are going to be empty nesters too, that type of
travel we’re looking to book more with our friends. So we can get
a four bedroom villa and we can now have four couples or three
couples with us and really just get to enjoy ourselves without the
kids, which has been great, but it’s time for them to move on and
it’s time for us to move on too.
Moderator: Absolutely awesome. Sorry to interrupt, it sounds like
a mental list. Do you have any kind of formal list of places that you
would like to hit in the near future?
Guest: In the, what’s your dream vacation and I denitely have big
plans for Asia. That would be probably fairly extensive like three
or four weeks, multiple destinations, a mix of urban and rural
and resort. Again with the goal of getting a more local immersive
experience. That’ll be like “the big one”. We’ve talked about doing
a safari. That’s in the midpack for me, although I’ve heard amazing
things about everybody that’s ever gone on a safari. But it’s also
wickedly expensive, so that just depends on how some of my
companies do, whether we’ll ever do that trip. I’m a big lover of
Europe. There’s a lot. We’ve seen a lot of Europe, there’s a lot that
we still haven’t seen. I also do a lot of traveling with my friends
‘cause we’re formula one enthusiasts so we have a long, and those
are guy’s trips. We have 10 races that we’re going to go to within
the next ve years.
141
Moderator: Awesome.
Guest: Singapore, Monaco, Baku, some of the more exotic locales.
Moderator: Very cool. Great. I appreciate that. That makes a lot
of sense. Final question Rob would be, when you think about the
process of nalizing all these travel plans, what would make your
life easier, if anything?
Guest: What would make my life easier. Somebody that thinks like
me to do the work for me.
Moderator: Yep.
Guest: A nice doppelganger that could just. Not that I don’t enjoy
it, but it’s time consuming. Even with all the great resources out
there, there’s a crazy abundance of travel data. So it takes a long
time to sift through, to sift through and do that initial shake out to
get to the meat of where you want to concentrate your eorts on.
That’s it. And that’s what, I guess, a travel agent is for, but
personally I like to do, I don’t mind doing my own research and
then presenting my travel agent with my research rst versus the
other way around.
Moderator: Great.
Guest: ‘Cause I’m nding if I let my travel agent come to me with,
are there, a reason why I’ve had a relationship with her for 20 years,
25 years, why is she presenting this property over another
property? Are they getting better deals there? There’s always
some type of bias I believe in some of the recommendations that
you get from a travel agent. I like to do my own research rst and
then present it to her and see what she can do with it versus the
other way around.
Moderator: Beautiful. I really appreciate it. This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time. I think the process from here is
pretty simple, we just mark you as attended in the software and
that’s it. Thank you again, lots of really great insights and I hope
you and your wife have lots of fun as you become empty nesters.
Guest: Oh, we’re planning on it. Thank you so much. This is always
fun for me. Feel free to hit me up anytime.bye bye.
Moderator: Will do. Thank you again. This is fantastic. I appreciate
it. Have a great weekend. Take care, bye.
142
143
5.1 Clustering information with tags
5.2 Findings (Key insights).
5.3 Emerging dimensions for Personas
Analysis of the
research
05
5.4 Clusters of traits(behaviours) for building persona
5.4 Grid and structure of a Persona
144
5.1 Clustering information with tags
Codifying/Tagging is a process that permits data to be
“segregated, grouped, regrouped and relinked in order to
consolidate meaning and explanation” (Grbich, 2007, p. 21). Bernard
(2006) succinctly states that analysis “is the search for patterns in
data and for ideas that help explain why those patterns are there
in the rst place”. Coding is thus a method that enables you to
organize and group similarly coded data into categories or “fami-
lies” because they share some characteristic – the beginning of a
pattern.
What is a Code/Tag ?
A code in qualitative inquiry is most often a word or short phrase
that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-captur-
ing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or
visual data.
For example, The one-word capitalized code is called a
Descriptive Code, which summarizes the primary topic of the
excerpt:
“I notice that the grand majority of homes have chain SECURITY
link fences in front of them. There are many dogs(mostly German
shepherds) with signs on fences that
say “Beware of the Dog.”
Code/Tag - Security
A code can sometimes summarize or condense data, not simply
reduce it.
In this research , three customer segments of interviews to explore
the planning, pre-booking phase of travel are :
• Prospects CC
• Prospects NTC
• Past Guests
145
The information is categorized into the above list of tags :
• Planning approach
• Information gathering
• Information Touchpoints
• Travel type
• Booking factor
• Bucket list
• Reviews & Recommendations
• Lack of information
• Travel trigger
• Family Background
• Oers & deals
Few examples of process of tagging notes during the process of
analysis :
Planning approach is a tag includes all the information/data
about the process of planning, how they consider this process,
how they plan, who plans the vacation, what factor they consider
for planning .
Example - “We don’t over-research destinations to the nth degree
because we have traveled quite a lot. By no means have we been
everywhere, but we’re fairly familiar with the kinds of places that
we’re likely to go to (...) the only thing that we research a lot is if we
do a family holiday, the property has to be a) of a high standard,
b) in a location that we like that we may not have been to before
or recently, and c) the conguration of the bedrooms, the living
areas, the pool has got to be right.”
In this statement - The approach and the factors aecting there
planning are stated .
In some cases it was also observed that a statement would state a
multiple information of tags. So it was necessary to tag the state-
ment with multiple tag.
For example - “Look, the other thing is, prices. I shop around
extensively, right? And I don’t trust somebody else to do that
as well as I would myself (Planning approach). So when I nd a
hotel through TripAdvisor, you know, I’ll goon Booking.com, I’ll
check the room rate on Booking.com, then I’ll go to the hotel
website(Oers & Deals), I’ll check their direct price. And you know,
just do that automatically. And you know, you could be quite
surprised how much of a dierence you can get when you shop
around like that.”(Online Booking)
As described above this statement states information which
should be categorized into multiple tags i.e #Oer-deals
#Planning-Approach #PG-12#Online-Booking.
• Needs
• Competitors
• Upcoming-travel
• Recurrent-travel
• On board experience
• Expedition
• Classic
• Travel lenght
• Anxiety
• Community
146
Few examples of tagging notes under each tag the process of
analysis :
Planning approach
• “Well, there’s a lot of planning, for sure, when you’re doing six
countries. Just getting there requires a lot of planning. Yeah.
We’ve been working on this for quite a while.” #Planning
Approach #PG01
• “Well actually, our travel agent’s pretty traveled himself. And
he’s never steered us wrong. We’ve only used him for a couple
of years. Before that I did most of our, I was the travel agent
before that. But this guy’s pretty good and he seems to get us
the best prices.” #Travel-agent #PG01 #Planning-Approach
#Information Touchpoints
• “We do it in parallel. So we actually sit side by side on the
couch and she does her search, I do mine, and then we just
share screen and compare things, and so on. It’s very collabo-
rative in that sense. Neither one of us is in charge, so we do it
as, say, “Okay, we should plan a trip, where are we gonna go?
What about this?” “Uh ... No, it doesn’t sound good. But what
about that?” We drift until we nd something that we both
think is interested, so it’s very playful in that sense. It’s very
collaborative, it’s a shared experience. The shared experiences
start ahead of the trip in the selection of the destination and
the planning and so on.” #Planning-Approach #NTC-10
Information Gathering
• “I mean, we’ve never, other than Egypt, we’ve never been to
Africa. We really didn’t know what to expect. I read reviews
and things like that and get a little idea of what to expect.
But we just know it’s, we’re there to do the safaris and all that
kind of thing. And the main thing was picking the right time of
year to go to take advantage of the weather and seeing the
most, getting the most out of your safari. When we’re going is
actually the peak of the migration and it’s also the dry sea-
son. Which makes, of course, getting around and touring and
seeing things a little easier. It’s winter down there, but it’s the
best time to go.” #Information-gathering #PG01 #Informa-
tion Touchpoints #Booking-Factor #Lack-of-information.
147
• “So Condé Nast Traveler is a really important one, I think. For
things like restaurants, I would always look at places. For the
US, for example, I look at Zagat or Baguette Guide. So I would
do quite a lot of research around it, but I wouldn’t try and fol-
low the crowd. So, for instance, there are a lot of people who
look on things like TripAdvisor. And I might have a look at that.
But the problem with TripAdvisor, I think it’s very much it’s a
bit self-fullling and I don’t think it necessarily reects a very
objective viewpoint.” #Information Touchpoints #Informa-
tion-gathering #PG-02
• “A great example is the trip that we took to Antarctica where
you share stories about what you’ve done and where you’ve
been and other people are going, oh wow, that’s really cool.
And we go well, if you ever want to go to Tanzania, let us know
because we can help you with some ideas around where to go
and what to see and where to stay and who to work with, and
so we’ve done that.”#Information-gathering #reviews recom-
mendations #PG-06
Information Touchpoints
• “We’re always looking for places to go. We tend to like to do
dierent places, so we just look around, read the travel
• magazines, look at stu on the internet, just from our own
• experiences where we want to go, and then we narrow it
down to a couple dierent places.” #Information Touchpoints
#Travel-monitoring #PG-04
• “We hadn’t cruised with them but we started looking at
what they oered and so I picked up the phone and had a
conversation with one of their people and got comfortable
with how they pulled their itinerary together and one thing led
to another and within 30 days of that A & K brochure landing in
the mail, we had the trip booked.”#Information Touchpoints
#PG-06
• “We did a river cruise in Europe on the Danube on
AmaWaterways and really enjoyed it. Very good company,
nice new ships, good itinerary. And we thought they did really
good job, that was our rst river cruise ever. And our travel
agent uses him quite a bit and he knew we were interested in
a Africa trip.” #PG01 #Competitors #Information Touchpoints
148
Travel type
• “We’re very active when we go on holiday. My husband and I,
we’re not lying on beach type people. We never, ever do that.
So for us it’s about going and spending lots of time going out
and about and looking at things. We like walking, just doing
lots of activities.”#Travel-type #PG-02
• “We have been so many places in our lives and so many really
cool places. I mean, we’ve set foot on all seven continents. My
interest is to go back and revisit the places that I really loved
the rst time around. So we’ve got this kinda tension between
doing things that are brand new and doing things that we’ve
done before. I’m in the process right now of trying to see if we
can get back to Bora Bora which is where we spent our honey-
moon 35 years ago.”#Travel-type#PG-06
• “Cruising is our vacation of choice, when we have the chance.
We do other things of course, travel here, travel there, local-
ly in the United States, but we love cruises.” #Travel-type
#CC-03
Booking factor
• “So we’re thinking we go over, we do the cruise, we may have
several days with our friends in Washington State, then we can
either y down or drive down and spend a couple of weeks
with my wife’s cousin in California. So I would say there’s a rea-
sonably good chance of at least some of those components
kind of happening and falling together.”#Booking-Factor
#PG-05
• “The schedules are crazy. We have one out of college, one in
college, and one in high school. So trying to get all the sched-
ules to mash up and, you know, get everybody in one place
at one time is not easy. My oldest daughter graduated from
college in June, so we decided right after graduation was the
best opportunity.” #Booking-Factor #NTC-13
• “It’s just a matter of do I have the time? Is the timing good?
What’s the weather like when we do have the time? And
also, it’s a matter of do we have friends going somewhere?
Hey, let’s go with them. And not really think about where we
want to go but they’ve already booked theirs. That sounds
nice. And they’ll say, “Do you want to join us.” We’ll say, “Sure.”
#Booking-Factor #NTC-11
149
Bucket list
• “Well, my ultimate would be a round-the-world cruise. Maybe
one day we’ll get to do that. But probably before that we’ll do,
we haven’t been to Australia or New Zealand, we haven’t been
to Tahiti. I’d like to see Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands.
And more of Asia.” #PG01#Bucket-list
• “We just like to see dierent parts of the world, the dierent
customs. So to be clear, what I meant was places where we
haven’t been together. So as I mentioned, I’ve been to Mon-
treal but she hasn’t. So it’s not a new destination for me but it
becomes a new travel experience because I’m going with my
wife. For example, the same applies to Tokyo, but we can talk
about that later. I’ve been to Tokyo many times, she hasn’t.”
#Bucket-list #NTC-10
• “No, we don’t have a physical bucket list. It’s denitely a mental
list, yeah.” #Bucket-list #PG-07
Reviews Recommendations
• “Well I found that I’ve written reviews into TripAdvisor and so
I’ve had a chance to kinda understand how it works. I’ve be-
come part of the kinda reviewer community and it’s really nice.
You can go in and talk to other people who have had the same
holiday that you’ve had or the same experience that you’ve
had and say for instance, a classic example is, we took a trip
to India ve years ago and one of the questions that we had is,
how do you make sure that the driver you’re gonna have has
got an air conditioned car and is a safe driver?” #Information
Touchpoints #reviews recommendations #PG-06
• “Particularly because, again, we spent time in Florence, and
being from Florence and still having family there, a lot of peo-
ple ask me for references, so I do the same to help them. So in
that case, or if a friend presumably wants to go to Montreal lat-
er on, it’s a good way to share resources with them.” #reviews
recommendations #NTC-10
• “There are destinations, one that it’s in mind is going to see
the Galapagos Islands. We have many friends, good number
of friends that have been there and I just ... It’s fascinating.”
#reviews recommendations #NTC-11
150
Lack of information
• “Paris was ne, and then we got to the Normandy portion.
I’m thinking Normandy, how big could it possibly be? I didn’t
really pay attention. Normandy’s big. The hotel, again, is kind
of centralized, and it’s a neat little place in Jumieges, it’s an old
monastery town, it was built around a monastery. It’s kind of o
the beaten track.”#Lack-of-information #PG-04
• “So a lot of what I think about is the logistics of what’s it gonna
take to get where we’re going and can we get there and not
feel awful when we hit the ground.” #Lack-of-information
#PG-06
• “The truth of the matter is you spend most of the time at sea,
it’s winter, you don’t get into warm weather until you’ve been at
sea for a couple of days. Because you have less time to dock
at port your time is very truncated.” #Lack-of-information
#CC-18
Travel trigger
• “One of the big sources we look to initially to gure out places
to see is the thousand places book.”#Information Touchpoints
#Travel-trigger #PG-04
• “The reasons when I did, an inspiration is look, it was I want-
ed to do something very dierent for our 30th trip. We talked
about going on a really good trip. And she is ... Her bucket list
has been to visit Chile, Patagonia, and so on. So that’s totally
her bucket list. Always wanted to go down there.” #Bucket-list
#Travel-trigger #PG-12
• “Well we actually met three couples that we became really
good friends with, and one of the couples are traveling all the
time. And we keep up with them and we visited them here
about two months ago. They live in Toronto and they winter in
Florida. And we visited them in Florida and we decided to go
on a cruise together, the Silver Sea cruise to Iceland next year.
We never thought much about going to Iceland, but when I
looked into it it was just fantastic. I mean we thought it’d be
really a fun place to see that not many people get to see it.”
#Travel-trigger #PG-08
151
Family Background
• “I live in St. Helena Island South Carolina. I am a retired me-
chanical engineer. And trying to travel quite a bit. I mean I lived
in Connecticut for 40 years. And just I still maintain my house in
Connecticut, but I’m here for Connecticut has basically driven
me out based on their tax system.(...)I traveled with my wife
and my adult son.” #Family-background #PG-19
• “I’m in Melbourne with my partner and two boys, age 11 and 14.
It’s Saturday morning here.”#NTC-21 #Family-background
Oers-deals
• “I’m an elite loyalty customer with British Airways and the rst
thing that I do when we look at something like that is, do I have
the ability to get awards seats to get us there and fortunately, I
did.”#Oer-deals #PG-06
• “My husband travels quite a bit with work, so he has a ton of
Marriott points. I was trying to look and see if we could use any
of those to help us.”#Booking-Factor #Oer-deals #NTC-13
• “I would normally look at a few places so the hotels on web-
sites, to look at their rates, and then usually, again, Hotels.com
or Booking.com, compare a few prices, have to check the ne
details sometimes so a cheaper price not be the best deal
sometimes if it excludes for example, excludes breakfast or
you have to pay for WiFi or whatever. A little bit of a compari-
son, look out what the nal price actually is. Then usually book
the cheapest option.” #Oer-deals #NTC-17
Needs
• “Half the time you can’t even get to talk to a person once
you’ve done something online. You know, you go through it
and you want that they should contact us, and you go through
and you’re talking to some algorithm. I just don’t want to do
that. And I think particularly the more luxury it is, the more you
want to feel that you’re talking to someone who’s an expert in
it.”#Online-Booking #PG-02 #needs
152
• “I guess if I knew of one place where I could look online,
because that’s where I would tend to do most of my research.
That I knew that I could trust with good information. If there
was one website that I could go to that had everything that I
needed within reach. The problem that I have is I don’t know
how trustworthy some of the websites are. They’re really
just promoting their product, if it’s one company’s website.”
#Information-gathering #needs #NTC-13
• “But it would be great to have more information about what
we’re buying. We shop very carefully on the shore excur-
sions.”#needs #PG-07
Competitors
• “We’ve done cruises before, I’ll now be going back ve or six or
seven years, but there were the big cruise liners, right? The [in-
audible 00:17:50] and Princess cruises. And we absolutely don’t
like those, and we won’t ever be doing them again. Largely
because it’s such a process to get on and o the ship, because
there’s 4000 people getting on and o the ship. And it’s such a
process, it’s such a drag, and there’s too many people and all
that.” #Competitors #PG-12
• “Our last trip was in September. We went on a Seabourn
cruise, a three week cruise. It was Barcelona to Barcelo-
na. It was western Mediterranean. We ended up going to
Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Malta, Italy, France.” #Last-travel
#Competitors #Travel-length #PG-07
Upcoming-travel
• “We also have booked to go in 2020 in I think it’s in May. I
think the 5th of May. And that’s the cruise that goes from
Yokohama in Japan up through various ports along, I think,
in Russia and then up across the Bering Sea to Alaska. And
then it goes down the ... I’m not very au fait with that part but it
goes up to Alaska and then it goes down. Eventually it stops at
Vancouver.” #Upcoming-travel #PG-02.
153
• “In June we’re going to Barcelona, we have an apart-
ment for six days, and we’re taking a Viking ocean cruise
from Barcelona around to Venice, that’s a 12 day cruise.
And then from there we’ll y to London, spend three days
in London, and return on the Queen Mary. ”#Travel-type
#Upcoming-travel #PG-19.
Recurrent-travel
• “The last signicant trip that we did was at Christmas. We go
to Jamaica each Christmas for a week or so. Just after Christ-
mas and over new years with the kids. So basically, a family
vacation there. So that was a beach holiday for a week or so in
Jamaica.” #recurrent-travel #Travel-type#PG-12
• “It has an awful lot of snow currently, and so it’s just the skiing’s
remarkable. We tend to go up there ... Well, we’ve been going
up to Tahoe for years.” #recurrent-travel #NTC-11
Onboard experience
• “The previous cruise in the Middle East, it was a little less, as
we noticed the crew and the people that worked, serve you
and that kind of thing, didn’t seem as happy at their job as they
normally were. But then this last one that we took last Novem-
ber is totally dierent. Everyone was happy and you could tell.
It makes a big dierence when the people that are taking care
of you are happy doing what they’re doing. And we were very
pleasantly surprised that something had changed, apparently,
so that people weren’t grumbling and moody and unhappy.”
#onboard-experience #PG01
• “We like to cruise on Oceanline. Oceanline is a known brand to
us. It’s got known values. We’ve been on [inaudible 00:10:09]
the expedition ships, we’ve been on all the ships many times.
We know many of the senior customer-facing sta, so the
cruise director, the hotel director, often the captain. So often
when we get on board, it’s more like meeting a load of, you
know, old buddies rather than [crosstalk 00:10:28] new. And my
wife, in particular, likes the familiarity with getting on board,
because we know exactly where everything is, how every-
thing works.” #onboard-experience #Expedition #PG-05
#Booking-Factor
154
Travel lenght
• “So, we tend to take quite regular trips. And trips may
be a three day weekend or something more signicant.”
#Travel-length #PG-12
• “So Mexico City for the holidays, for the Christmas holidays,
and we spent I think a total of six days in Mexico City around
the Christmas vacation. So we were downtown in Mexico City.
We love the city. We’d been there before and it was a great
mix of art and food. And we’re both foodies, so we appreciated
the opportunity to just experience the local cuisine. So we had
a great time. So as I said, not very long. We usually like short
holidays, so there’s something between say ve and 10 days.
And it was mostly kind of urban. We didn’t do any type of typ-
ical beach, I’m gonna say excursions and so on. So mostly in
the city.”#Travel-length #Last-travel #Travel-type #NTC-10
Anxiety
• “Basically when we get there, it’s pretty straightforward be-
cause it’s pretty much already been planned. Now the other
piece of it, when you say challenges, once again it’s logistics.
It really is logistics. When you get to an airport that you don’t
know and somebody is gonna meet you at the airport that
you’ve never met before and get you to stop number one,
there’s always that anxiety around, where are they gonna be?
What’s the arrival situation like? There’s gonna be ve million
people with signs waiting for you when you get out of cus-
toms. How do you nd the person, and what happens if you
can’t nd them and how do you make a phone call?”#anxiety
#PG-06
Community
• “Then we’ve created a little community of people that have
traveled and that we’ve met over the years and we keep
in touch and if they want our help, we give it to them. If we
need their help, we’ll ask it of them and that works out well.”
#community#reviews recommendations #PG-06
155
5.2 Findings (Key insights)
• Planning vacations isn’t painful, challenging or frustrating… but
it is undeniably a fun, exciting time-consuming process that
builds immense anticipation. The planner enjoys the process
as it builds excitement and ensures attention to detail (no
mistakes).
• There are few universally accepted planning resources — and
none is as perfect as the planner themselves. There is a great
sense of distrust… distrust in 3rd party sites, in Travel agents,
and in general in providers having the guests’ best interests in
mind.
• This class of traveler is picky — has time on their hands {for
the most part} — and is willing to hunt for a tip, bargain, detail
to enhance their trip. Their tastes and preferences are some-
what set in stone and there are few trusted resources that
understand this better than themselves.
• The process of planning a vacation requires a lot of digging,
searching, reading, closing, dismissing, printing, storing, shar-
ing which boils down to cross-referencing. This cross checking
emerged as the biggest consumer pain point in the planning
process (searching for a needle in a haystack).
• Once the destination is selected travelers look into the follow-
ing to help further the decision making process - Conde Nast
Traveler, Departures, lonely planet, Fodords, Friends, Books.
These sources have trustworthy, unbiased content. Often
times the local newspaper or a Departures article can also be
a source of inspiration.
• Documentation storage is mixed - digitally on devices as well
as printed version of information, bookings and itineraries.
156
5.3 Emerging dimensions for Personas
Below are the results of dimensions identied in the process of
analysing the interview transcripts.
After clustering, it was evident that there are 3 types of dierent
person’s discrimination patterns in terms of their attitude. On this
basis, we concluded to create 3 personas for highlighting their
behaviour, needs and goals.
Fig 5 : Result
of dierent
dimensions
identied
during analysis
157
Details of the selected dimensions :
1. Planning approach - Planner / Improviser (Prefers to decide
according situation).
2. Technology attitude - Tools for planning, information storage,
distrust of technology
3. Planning Autonomy - Depends upon travel agent / Indepen-
dent
4. Discovery attitude - New Destinations, recurrent destinations,
excursions, travel type.
5. Depth of research - Details of information, itinerary.
After mapping all the dimensions for all interviews, Observing the
distribution of the past guests and prospects along the
dimensions, we can arm there is no clear correlation between
the clusters and the customer segments. The next step was to
cluster these results of dimensions.
Fig 6 : Dierent majority of clus-
ters of dimensions idetied.
158
After clustering, it was evident that there are 3 types of dierent
person’s discrimination patterns in terms of their attitude. On this
basis, we concluded to create 3 personas for highlighting their
behaviour, needs and goals.
Persona’s Discrimination
• Individual Planner / Collaborative Planner / Improviser
• Trusting reviews / Opportunistic reading of reviews / Skeptic
reviews
• Family traver / Couple Travel
• Empty nesters / Couple without kids / Couple with kids
teenagers
• (Retired) Business traveler / Leisure traveler
• Living abroad / Living in own country / Hub in other continent
• No travel agent / Travel agent for booking / Travel agent for
planning
• Planning is : Exciting / A burden / Therapeutic
159
5.4 Clusters of traits(behaviours) for building
persona
Once the tagging process was done, the next step was to assign
discriminating traits to the right persona, looking out for
correlations or plausible associations between traits. By this step,
this helped to build the 3 cluster of persona based on their
dimensions, behaviour and attitude during the process of planning
or booking a vacation.
Persona 1 : Planner
(Main trait of behaviour)
Background
Quote
“Planning is therapeutic”
Dimensions
Common traits
• Planning Approach : 10 on Planner side (individual planner)
• Technology attitude : 9 on Condent (Tools for storage) -
• dierent touchpoints
• Planning Autonomy : 9 on independent (Booking online) -
• no travel agents
• Discovery Attitude : 6 Moderate Explorer
• Depth of research : 9 on researcher side
• Opportunistic reader for online reviews
• Family Traveler with teenage children
• Lived abroad exclusively with Family
• Visiting friends and relatives around the globe
• Bucket list-places where family hasn’t visited
• Business traveller,
• Male,
• 58 years old
160
Persona 2 : Explorer
(Main trait of behaviour)
Background
• Female , 62
Quote
“ I wanted a little bit of danger,
a little bit of adventure.”
Dimensions
• Planning Approach : 3 on improviser side (last minute bookings,
unplanned days, open to discovery)
• Technology attitude : 7 quite condent ( No spreadsheets,
some digital touch points, books, print copies)
• Planning Autonomy : 5 Partially autonomous (Delegates some
specic Travel agent booking tasks)
• Discovery attitude : 9 Explorer (Adventure, looking for novelty,
No recurrent travels)
• Depth of research : 6 Curious (wants to be surprised)
Common traits
• Trusting + Writing reviews online.
• Leisure traveller.
• Lives in own country but has european hub.
• Visit family in another country.
• Planning is a burden.
• Bucket list - new places, new experience.
161
Persona 3 : Trustful
(Main trait of behaviour)
Background
• Retired
• Male 73 years old
Quote
“ For us is quite often about going
to places with other friends”
Dimensions
• Planning Approach : 6 light planner (Collaborative planner,
somebody contributes in research).
• Technology attitude : 3 Cautious. (Lack of trust, prefers to
• interact with people as a touch point).
• Planning Autonomy : 2 Delegating (Prefers to trust Travel
agents).
• Discovery attitude : 2 Conservative (Loyal to the brand,
Recurrent travel, No adventure).
• Depth of research : 4 Casual information seeker.
Common traits
• Skeptic online reviews
• Couple traveler
• Empty nesters
• Likes to travel with friends
• Planning is fun
• Bucket list - friends, repeating destinations
162
5.5 Grid and structure of a Persona
Prole
• Persona Name + Last name
• Age
• Gender
Bio
• Work Status
• Family Background
Travel Habits
• Travel type
• Recurrent travel if any
• Booking Factors
• Bucket list
• Trigger
Information Gathering
• Process how
• Touchpoints/ Reviews and recommendations
• Information storage/ tools
• Lack of information
Planning
• Approach/ Process
• Collaboration
• Delegation - Travel Agent
Booking
• Online booking
• Oers + Deals
Goals & Needs
163
164
165
6.1 Draft Persona (for internal and external review)
6.2 Final Persona Poster
Outcome of the
research
06
166
6.1 Draft Persona (for internal and external
review)
Persona 1 - Paul Planner
Male
54 years old
“I actually nd it [planning the trip] to be my therapy. So, I nd it
therapeutic. (...) It makes me feel really good about doing the whole
process. And I also feel in control.”
Dimensions
Planning Approach
Planning Autonomy
Technology Attitude
Discovery Attitude
Depth of research
Bio
Paul is an top notch business consultant and his job has taken him
around the world multiple times. He even lived abroad extensively
with his family, moving between continents. He is married and has
two teenage children.
Impro-
viser
Planner
Delegat-
ing
Indepen-
dent
Cautious Condent
Conser-
vative
Explorer
Casual Research-
er
167
Travel habits
• They take trip vacations according to both their work schedule
and their children’s school schedule
• Although he likes to explore new destinations, he doesn’t mind
going back to ones they enjoyed in past trips. Besides, he of-
ten adjusts itineraries to go visit friends from abroad
• They also established their own family traditions and have
preferred accommodations.
• Upcoming travels are chosen by balancing geography, per-
sonal interests and new perspective on repeating destinations
“Generally the top end of what we can travel right now with our business respon-
sibilities and the kids is about 15 days.” (PG)
“So trying to get all the schedules to mash up and, you know, get everybody in
one place at one time is not easy.” (PRO)
“So we’ve got this kinda tension between doing things that are brand new and
doing things that we’ve done before.” (PG)
“Our trips are always around places where we can hook up with and meet up
with people. Or go to places we haven’t been to before or places we’ve been to
and we really love.” (PG)
“Jamaica, we go to a very nice, sort of, high end, all inclusive resort. Booked a
suite resort. So it’s pretty expensive. But we do that every Christmas. And bring the
kids.” (PG)
“Jamaica, we go to a very nice, sort of, high end, all inclusive resort. Booked a
suite resort. So it’s pretty expensive. But we do that every Christmas. And bring the
kids.” (PG)
“The bucket list will always include probably even places that we have been to,
but then we actually go to other places, okay? (...) I know really the country inside
out, but I have never looked at Japan from a cruise point of view.” (PG)
“So, it’s really more around parts of the world that we haven’t been to, rather-
than specic (...) I think we’re probably changing a bit now to bucket list being
almost the journey, rather than the destination, right. I think we’re really enjoying
this high-end cruises to really nice, neat places. I suspect that those are gonna
become... I’m intending to sort of retire in about four years or so. So, I mean that’s
the sort of stu that we would intend to do a lot more of.” (PG)
168
• Their bucket list, which is digitally stored, is lled up with con-
tributions from all the family members.
• Inspiration for next travels come from direct research or from
friends’ and family’s recommendations.
Information Gathering
• Given his extensive knowledge of countries and cultures
around the world, he is not starting from scratch his research.
• He is very thorough in collating information and extremely de-
tailed data about activities, locations, restaurants, and accom-
modations
“We had talked about several dierent destinations, most of them, I would say
the majority of them in Europe. And we narrowed it down to about I want to say
ve or six that we thought were feasible both nancially and as far as time wise.
And then, we all kind of voted on our top 3 individually and then folded it
together.” (PRO)
“With Mexico, my daughter had some friends that stayed at this location. So it
just caught on with her, and she suggested, “Hey, why don’t we all go and rent a
large house and stay all together?” Which we did.” (PRO)
“Then it’s just seeing maybe an article in Conde Nast or stu like that, maybe on
the internet, something that pops up that gives us a thing.” (PG)
“Australia, we’ve never been. Like I said, we’ve never been. I have a rst cousin
that lives there, he travels over here, so it’s not that we haven’t seen each other.
But I’ve heard so much about that country, and New Zealand.” (PRO)
“So I lived in the Philippines, I lived in Hong Kong and I lived in Japan. So obvi-
ously because of that, you know also about the seasonalities. You know when
you want to travel where in what season and what season is probably not a good
idea, whether it is because it’s extremely busy or let’s say extremely unpleasantly
hot or it could be the rainy season or it could be even a typhoon season.” (PG)
“Because it’s like sifting through a haystack for a needle. And I think I’m pretty
eloquent because I do a lot of research. I’m quite adept at nding information
and knowing how to look for things.” (PG)
“Well, I tend to over-research everything. I like to kind of get in and see all the
details myself.” (PRO)
“Plus when you’re investigating a hotel, or an apartment, you need to see what
the neighborhood is like. (...) And then you can go on Google Earth and nd the
church, and kinda get the general alignment and see exactly where it is (...) You’re
really never surprised if you do the homework. And one of the worst things you
can do is spend $30,000 on a trip, and then go someplace and be disappointed.”
(PG)
169
• He tends to research as many sources as possible, comparing
and cross-referencing them.
• He doesn’t completely trust online reviews, which, in his opin-
ion, could be biased; he uses them in an opportunistic way, to
pull out additional details from them
• Being a detail-oriented and a pretty organized person, he
stores and categorizes the information in digital formats,
whether they are documents or spreadsheets. He also ensures
the les are backed-up and accessible while travelling
Planning
• He is an obsessive planner, who wants to keep everything
under control. His need of detailed planning comes from fear
of surprises and of the unexpected.
“[You should] consider as many sources as you can for ideas and information.
Like falling down a rabbit hole.” (PRO)
“I’ll look at dierent itineraries, I’ll also look at class of services, so I like to look
at the videos. I go to YouTube to see if anybody has videoed a ship or hotel, so
anything, and I try to piece it together.” (PG)
“If you were reading the Trip Advisor reviews for example for Florence, Italy, often
times little things would pop up in the reviews about places that people had gone
(...) that might be o the beaten path that I might not have considered otherwise.”
(PRO)
“Then you go on Tripadvisor and check on top ten. Alright, so I got the top tens
already sort of sorted out.” (PG)
“I type everything up in a Word document (...) If it’s a booking conrmation via
email, so I would save all those emails in a specic folder as well on my phone.
And I make sure I can access that Word document on my phone as well.” (PG)
“Usually I put it in my computer, then I put it in a folder under travel on that partic-
ular destination city. So it’s all in one place, and then before I go, then (...) before I
go, then I transfer it to my phone so I have a copy on my phone.
Also I’ll print it out and keep a copy in a folder” (PRO)
“I like to know what I’m doing. I like to be prepared. I don’t like big surprises.” (PG)
170
• He doesn’t trust anyone else to the planning for him. He in-
volves his wife just for an inspiration or for a nal validation of
his choices, rather than for an actual contribution on planning.
He might share some of his research with the family to stimu-
late their curiosity.
• He doesn’t rely on travel agents for planning nor booking,
since he doesn’t trust them being as much detailed-oriented
as he is.
Booking
• He prefers booking online their trips, either through travel sites
or directly with hotels and companies.
“One of the things Lisa wants to do is a helicopter tour, so we’ll search Kawaii
helicopter tours. And then, having found a few, I actually, before we get in a
helicopter, I’m kind of nervous Nellie, I will go to the national transportation safety
board and look at their safety record.” (PG)
“I would Google it and I would say ‘Any issues with’ and then put the name of
the ship or ‘With this company’ or ... actually I work in a big law rm, if I’m really
interested I’ll look to see if anybody is suing them.” (PG)
“I wanna do research, I wanna know what’s there.
The nice thing is by the time I’m nished doing that, I know a heck of a lot more
about where we’re going than if I let some travel agent do it.” (PG)
“I never use travel agents. I never use anybody to help me book trips. I just book
myself, based on the websites and stu.” (PG)
“I show the boys pictures of the sites that we’re trying to get to. For example,
Sigiriya Rock Temple, we might watch a short video about it. (...) I might even go
on Google Maps and have a satellite or street view adventure, virtual adventure.
So take them through quite in detail, to get them excited about visiting for them-
selves. I wouldn’t involve them at all in any of the logistics.” (PRO)
“I’m the one who gures it out. I’ll get online and start looking for things. I’ve got-
ten my antenna out all the time. And then once I gure out kind of what my wife
will agree to and I know her parameters, and then we’ll decide whether we want
to do.” (PG)
“I would say I do primary research and then the decision typically is made with
some type of collaboration or back and forth with my wife.” (PRO)
“All independently. We booked our own ights, we booked our own hotels and our
own B&Bs. Yeah. All independently.” (PRO)
“I’m very comfortable doing all of that myself. I quite enjoy booking the trips.” (PG)
171
• He cares about getting the best price as part of his research
on planning. He does it by cross-referencing dierent sites.
Goals & Needs
• Much more detailed information about itineraries, excursions
and logistics.
• A trustful, unbiased source of information.
• A richer description of the experience they are going to live to
understand if it’s worth
• Some inspirational resources to deepen their knowledge
about the destinations
“One thing that comes to mind is thinking about how much time you need
to spend not just doing the looking for things but also how you plan. Say, for
example, you were in a place for only one day. How should you best use your
time there? Because I think again you can under or overestimate how much time
you’ve got.” (PG)
“I had to get her a visa when we got to Kuala Lumpur. And everything on the inter-
net said that she didn’t need one, that she could have a visa on arrival. And when
we got there we found out that wasn’t true.” (PRO)
“The other thing is, prices. I shop around extensively, right? And I don’t trust
somebody else to do that as well as I would myself. So when I nd a hotel
through TripAdvisor, you know, I’ll go on Booking.com, I’ll check the room rate on
Booking.com, then I’ll go to the hotel website, I’ll check their direct price. (...) You
could be quite surprised how much of a dierence you can get when you shop
around like that.” (PG)
“Then you have to cross-check the information on that hotel with other sites to
make sure that that’s correct. It would’ve been nice to have a trusted source to
know if you go on that website, these hotels or bed and breakfasts or whatever
are truly vetted, and you can trust that information.” (PRO)
“I’d like to know more about the character of the place. I think they could be
much more conversational in the way that they describe. Maybe they could get
people who maybe write articles that you could then have a link to. Or someone
who’s taken some amazing kind of video or photography, or just some way that
gives you more of a kind of a much more enriching experience.” (PG)
“They’re often somewhat sketchy. And I’ve never seen them include additional
enrichment material. I think it would be great to say, well, you’re going to be in
Munich, here’s three books you might want to look at before you go. Yale does
that with their tours. They’ll have recommended reading before you go on the
tour. I’ve never seen a cruise line do that, and maybe there’s not a demand for it,
but as long as I’m getting a vote, that’s mine.” (PG)
172
Persona 2 Emma Explorer
Female
62 years old
“Their journey had been highly curated by a top-end luxury holiday
company, which actually was a bit too safe for us. I wanted a little bit
of danger, a little bit of adventure”
Dimensions
Planning Approach
Planning Autonomy
Technology Attitude
Discovery Attitude
Depth of research
Bio
She lives with her husband in their country of origin. She works
full-time for a large law rm. She owns a house in Europe that they
use as a base for travelling to other continents; she also goes to
Europe at least once a year to visit her family.
Impro-
viser
Planner
Delegat-
ing
Indepen-
dent
Cautious Condent
Conser-
vative
Explorer
Casual Research-
er
173
Travel habits
• She fancies trips to remote and exotic places that include a lot
of unusual and adventurous activities. With her husband they
tend not to cover touristic and over-crowded paths and prefer
to explore less known places
• She travels for maximum two weeks, and typically o-season
due to work reasons. Besides, she likes to visit places when
they are not ooded by tourists
• She is an experienced amateur photographer, always looking
for beautiful landscapes and secret spots to capture with her
camera
• In her bucket list she has places where they haven’t been, and
experiences she has not done yet. They usually don’t repeat
the same destination twice but if they do, they’ll uncover new
angles of it
“We actually like to go places that are more remote, so it’s more of an adventure
for us. So it might be a bit of trekking, maybe taking the vehicle up to precarious
rocky places.” (PRO)
“We’re very active when we go on holiday. My husband and I, we’re not lying-
on-beach type of people. We never, ever do that. So for us it’s about going and
spending lots of time going out and about and looking at things. We like walking,
just doing lots of activities.” (PG)
“We both, we like immersive experiences so we’d like to be, no need to go to
super touristy places, we’ve done all that in Italy. Being somewhere maybe a little
bit o the beaten track where it’s just not overrun by people that look like us is
always appealing.” (PRO)
“It just is too much organizing and just too much ... It would probably not be
appreciated as well if I disappeared every year for three weeks. That’s sort of over
and above.” (PG)
“We like to travel o season. It’s just less stress. It’s easier to plan for work
purposes. It’s also less busy.” (PRO)
“We’re also avid photographers, so we will always look for that kind of
opportunity. (...) We booked a wedding photographer in Venice, who promised to
take us to unusual photo spots in Venice” (PG)
174
Information Gathering
• She feels like she doesn’t need to do a lot of research beforehand. She just
looks for places and activities out of curiosity
• She usually starts the process of collecting information for
her next trip asking to friends and family members. She often
relies on recommendations from friends and other travelers,
and she both reads and writes reviews online
• She uses a mobile app to store all the travel information, be-
cause she prefers having them all in the same place and with
her all the time
“Well, it’s an area that we haven’t been to, and since we haven’t been there we’re
exploring the world as we can.” (PRO)
“So I have a bucket list and I have things that I have not done in my life. My hus-
band and I both traveled extensively, but didn’t do everything of course.” (PG)
“I would probably rst of all start by asking friends and family. So a lot of our
friends are very well traveled. My sister and her husband travel all the time. So I
would probably start with that, and then I’d probably also look online.” (PG)
“I’m a Google local guide and then I’m also fairly highly ranked on Tripadvisor,
so I do participate in reviewing and leaving my opinions on the internet so I rely
heavily on those types of sources to help me.” (PRO)
“We have friends who are experienced travelers and they might have experienced
something or gone to places where we haven’t been or things that we have left
out.” (PG)
“We don’t over-research destinations to the nth degree because we have traveled
quite a lot. By no means have we been everywhere, but we’re fairly familiar with
the kinds of places that we’re likely to go to.” (PG)
“I’m just curious. Just curiosity. Just a desire to ... I like to know what I’m doing.”
(PG)
“I used the TripIt app, and stored some information in there just to have it all in
one place for me. Yeah, so it’s just storing your basic travel information. Flights,
all the ight information, if you have a rental car, you can put the info in there. It’ll
send you reminders about upcoming trips and hotel stays.” (PRO)
“As you upload that app for instance, you can also have all of your tickets elec-
tronically on your phone. So you don’t even have to print them out. You can print
them out for back-up.” (PG)
175
• She has a relaxed attitude when things don’t match her expecta-
tions, since she lives for the day when travelling. She learns from
her mistakes and takes stock of them
Planning
• Considering her workload, planning for her is time-consum-
ing and feels like work; besides, she also prefers having no
constraints of time or scheduled activities, living time for
serendipity
• She likes to prot from other people’s experiences, because
she feels she is saving a lot of time, while others have worked
hard researching and planning
• She is supported by travel agents only when it comes to book
elaborate itineraries. She appreciates them solving any issues
they might have, and also their experience in getting better rates
“I learned the hard way when I was o by - you know, when you’re ying and it’s
the next day and you’re o. I actually screwed up my stu and I learned.” (PG)
“We were in Cuzco for an hour and a half. You have a hotel room, but you can’t
sleep. Just a lot of logistics that are challenging. I, personally, don’t mind it that
much, but it was dicult and I understand.” (PG)
“I think in general is because if someone I know I can trust has been somewhere
and they’ve enjoyed it (...) so I kind of feel like they’ve done the hard work of
researching for us.” (PRO)
“What would make my life easier. Somebody that thinks like me to do the work
for me. A nice doppleganger.” (PG)
“Not that I don’t enjoy it, but it’s time consuming. Even with all the great resources
out there, there’s a crazy abundance of travel data.” (PRO)
“So we’ll get into town, we’ll play it by ear. We’re gonna go to pubs and drink a lot
of Guinness and just what I would call, have a pretty low-key holiday in terms of
not really getting too heavily into choreographed activity but still having fun.” (PG)
“If you’ve got it all mapped out in too much detail, you just sort of feel like you’re
ticking things o a list rather than improvising on the oor.” (PRO)
“We use a travel agent for more complex bookings, like if we’re going multi-desti-
nation, if we feel our travel agent (...) can book more favorable rates.” (PRO)
“The advantage of a travel agent, of course, is that you can just call them and
they can x any issues you’ve got. I was in Shanghai a couple of years ago and
my house ooded and I needed to get back, so I just phoned my travel agent and
she just organized my return fares and my insurance and everything else, she
made it quite simple.” (PG)
176
Booking
• She doesn’t like to organize her trips in advance: she usually
books last minute, even because she can get good deals this
way
• She is used to booking online, and she checks out both travel
and hotels websites
• She cross-checks airfares with travel agents to see if she can
get a good deal
Needs & Goals
• Personalized suggestions for destinations and itineraries
based on a set of parameters, which allows her to narrow
down possibilities
• Immersive information (like videos and beautiful landscape
pictures) that make her empathize with the places she is going
to visit
“I have one favorite airline that I y with. I just look up a schedule that ts, and
book the trip, and nd some way to get to the airport.” (PG)
“Online. A lot of online. Booked B&Bs online independently. We did use Costco.
I can’t remember if we used Costco that time or not. We used Costco to book at
least the trip over to Costa Rica.” (PRO)
“We tend to be very last minute when it comes to holidays.” (PRO)
“But we’re not big forward planners, to be honest with you. We tend to be quite
short-term.” (PG)
“The China, Japanese thing we did almost last minute last year ‘cause it was such
a good oer.” (PG)
“As far as air ticket is concerned, normally I check online rst. (...) then the next
thing is I’ll give the opportunity to a travel agent or one or the other. And check if
they can match it or better it.” (PG)
“It would be lovely if there’s a facility, maybe a website for example, where you tell
it what kind of holiday you want, what kind of hotel you would like, where you’re
starting from, where would you like to go, and then how many days you have,
what sort of attractions do you love to go to? And then it turns out a few dierent
options for you. That would be great.” (PRO)
177
• Roadmaps and itineraries involving activities like climbing, bik-
ing and kayaking, and also beautiful spots for photo shooting
• Last-minute solutions for long-distance and exotic destina-
tions allowing her to book short term
“I just didn’t get a good sense of how authentic the trip would be and while it
does t the description of what I like, like an emerging country I just couldn’t get
a sense of what it’s really like or if they just put together, the trip is so touristy that
you really wouldn’t get an understanding of the people who struggle. So some-
times if it doesn’t sit with me emotionally, or I feel like I’m just going to go on this
fake, have a fake experience, I won’t do it.” (PG)
“From wherever we can access still photos from travelers. I might even go on
Google Maps and have a satellite or street view adventure, virtual adventure.”
(PRO)
“The other place is the Galapagos. That, to me, feels like it’s very far down the list.
I don’t know. I think because it just feels to me like it’s not something we can plan
in a relatively short time.” (PRO)
“We like to be a little more active. It’s more like bike riding or walking or hiking
tours or walking up mountainside. Some museums, or some city just to throw that
in there.” (PRO)
“And because we like going out and about and walking and hiking and kayaking
and things like that, so we want to kind of cram it.” (PG)
178
Persona 3 - Sam Stable
Male
73 years old
“It’s a matter of: do we have friends going somewhere? Hey, let’s go
with them! And not really think about where we want to go, but that
they’ve already booked theirs”
Dimensions
Planning Approach
Planning Autonomy
Technology Attitude
Discovery Attitude
Depth of research
Bio
Sam is a retired business man with a past as Navy ocer, which
brought him to travel a lot across continents. He is enjoying this
quiet stage of life with his wife, since their children have left the
nest a few years ago.
Impro-
viser
Planner
Delegat-
ing
Indepen-
dent
Cautious Condent
Conser-
vative
Explorer
Casual Research-
er
179
Travel habits
• Given their relaxed schedule, they spend quite some time
travelling, in dierent moments of the year. They indulge
themselves in long trips that could last up to three months
• He plans mostly slow-pace vacations, often as a combination
of long itineraries, alternating land and sea, depending upon
the area of interest and destination
• He likes long-term, reliable relationships with people, and this
transfers also to his relationship with travel companies. He
likes going back to a familiar environment where his expecta-
tions are always met
• His bucket list is constrained by their ability to undergo itiner-
aries and destinations. It is not formalized, and he discusses it
with his spouse
“So we were on a Oceanline expedition ship and we went down to the Antarctic.
But that was part of a much bigger trip, because basically we went away for just
over three months.”(PG)
“We y to South Africa and then we go onto the Chobe River. We’ll board the
AmaWaterways boat there for a little four day cruise on the Chobe River. And
then we’ll see Victoria Falls and we’ll go to Johannesburg and then we’ll end up in
Tanzania.”(PG)
“It appeals to our sensibility of slow living. Smaller boats, upscale experience, it’s
all about chilling out and eating good food, and then getting o the boat to a
really cool destination and being able to see a lot of things, and get back on the
boat.” (PRO)
“Oceanline is a known brand to us. And my wife, in particular, likes the familiarity
with getting on board, because we know exactly where everything is, how every-
thing works , it’s more like meeting a load of people you know, like old buddies
rather than new.” (PG)
“Well about 12 years ago I wanted to go to Africa and Abercrombie and Kent is
very well known for its safaris and so we chose [them and] had a terric experi-
ence with A & K, and then Brazil was my 7th trip with A & K, I went to Morocco with
them, went to ... Gosh, a bunch of places.” (PG)
“Sometimes it’s just that we’ve kind got a list sort of in our heads. And with my
husband and I, for us it’s about doing things before we get too old to do them.”
(PG)
180
• Their next trips are inspired mostly but their friend’s plans and
suggestions. He doesn’t mind going back to a destination they
know or repeating an itinerary or a cruise, as long as the com-
pany is good
Information Gathering
• His way of collecting the initial information about an upcom-
ing destination begins with reading interesting travel sections
in newspapers. Then, he will continue by looking at guides,
books and proceeds also on websites.
• He doesn’t trust online reviews much: he prefers relying on ad-
vice and recommendation from friends and people he knows
well
• He prefers storing the information he collected as hard copies,
rather than digital. Once everything is organized in a folder, he
would bring it along with him during the trip
“All our friends are going to be empty nesters too, that type of travel we’re looking
to book more with our friends.” (PRO)
“Well we actually met three couples that we became really good friends with,
and one of the couples are traveling all the time. At the time we visited them, we
decided to go on a cruise together, the Oceanline cruise to Iceland with them. We
never thought much about going to Iceland, but when I looked into it it was just
fantastic.” (PG)
“And the other thing I think is really good, there’s some very, very good newspa-
pers and magazines in the UK. [...] Like the Telegraph, The Sunday Times and the
Guardian. (...) And they have very, very good travel sections in them, and they also
publish quite a lot that you can access online.” (PG)
“I’ll go to the bookstore, and I’ll get a photo or something of that nature, and I’ll
buy a book that I can read at my leisure, as opposed to having to look at some-
thing online. Because as I read at leisure, it’ll pinpoint various things. And then, I
can go online and see what those are.” (PRO)
“There is a lot of people who look on things like TripAdvisor. And I might have
a look at that. But the problem with TripAdvisor, I think it’s very much it’s a bit
self-fullling and I don’t think it necessarily reects a very objective viewpoint.”
(PG)”
“We have friends who are experienced travelers and they might have experienced
something or gone to places where we haven’t been or things that we have left
out. So that’s in an information gathering.” (PG)
181
Planning
• He enjoys spending some time devising their next trip. It’s
a fun activity for him, and the anticipation it’s part of the
excitement for the upcoming travel
• He often does the initial planning about a destination or draft
itinerary in collaboration with his wife
• Once he identies an outline of the intended itinerary, which is
not overcrowded with activities and details, he hands it over to
his long-known and trusted travel agent for sorting out the rest
Booking
• When it comes to booking, he prefers to deal directly with a
human, whether it is on person or by phone. He doesn’t trust
much purchasing over the internet for these type of travels,
with the only exception of airfare, which he sometimes books
himself
“I actually use an old fashioned pocket le (...) which normally, like, you know,
20 pocket les. It’s quite thick, okay, and then you actually stu per pocket just
maybe one destination.” (PG)
“I’m old school, so I will write down and print out conrmations so that I’ve got the
itinerary printed out as well.” (PRO)
“I sort of enjoy doing it. I mean, it’s fun, so the time that it takes doesn’t really
bother me.” (PRO)
“I’m a relationship person and I’ve got a terric relationship with this travel agent
here in Dallas now. Gosh, they’ve planned so many things for us. I know I’ve got
three people over there that you get on the phone, and there’s three people trying
to gure out how to help you.” (PG)
“I could have probably done all the research, but it’s just so time consuming start-
ing from scratch. So we decided, actually it was my husband that reached out to
a couple dierent travel groups to get some information.” (PRO)
“I do 95% of the work, And I’ll go over it with my wife like when we get to a pre-
liminary list of what we wanna see, and then she’ll add to it, or take away from it
depending upon her input.” (PG)
182
• Even if prices is often not an issue for him, he still enjoys get-
ting a good deal upon booking. He therefore prefers booking
quite in advance or using loyalty points
Goals & Needs
• Finding the ideal travel company for them, one they could
trust and go back to
• Clearer information on excursions and travel tips to set their
expectations right
“Half the time you can’t even get to talk to a person once you’ve done something
online, and you go through and end up talking to some algorithm. I just don’t
want to do that. In terms of luxury, the more you want to feel that you’re talking to
someone who’s an expert in it”. (PG)
“I might do the research online, but then I like to talk to people and I like the fact
that I’m talking to a person one-to-one and they can give me some advice about
doing this or that.” (PG)
“We will have something in mind, but we virtually always book on board simply
because you get an extra level of discount if you book on board.” (PG)
“We just book through Delta because we have status and we try to book through
Marriott because we also have status there.” (PRO)
“Then we’ve gravitated towards the luxury line. We’ve done Regent, Seven Seas.
We’ve done Seabourn twice and this will be our second Silversea. The real reason
is we’re looking for one line to stick with.” (PG)
“Our cruise line of choice is Celebrity. We started sailing with them probably about
20 years ago. (...) Anyway, we’ve been sailing with them for a while and whenever
we get a chance we go with them because number one, it’s just like ying with
the same airline or something, you collect anity points for dealing with the same
people all the time.” (PRO)
“As an example, on our last trip on Seabourn, I’m pretty good at reading between
the lines on shore excursions, but I fell for one that was just primarily a shopping
trip, and we missed what I would have much preferred to see in the area. So that
would help a lot, that kind of information.” (PG)
“That’s the good thing we like about using, when we did Tauck was you really
didn’t have to worry about anything. Everything was pretty much taken care of for
you, when you use a good company like that. (...) And they give you all the heads
up about visas and cash you should bring, and what diseases you should be
concerned about and that kind of thing. They give you a good, you have a good
understanding of what’s expected.” (PG)
183
• Advice on both weather at destinations and suggested attire
on board
“So I didn’t realize that going in December around New Years, which is when we
like to go, that’s when the greatest risk of just terrible fog and smog is (...) For
example, we went to the Taj Mahal, but we couldn’t see it, we could go in it but
it was all fogged in. I guess I need to pay more attention about not just weather,
temperature.” (PG)
“It would be good to know about when’s the best time of the year to go. So like
something around a calendar. And then the other thing, I know this is a real aside,
I would really like help with my wardrobe.” (PG)
6.2 Final Persona Posters
184
Paul
Planner
Male, 54 years old
Bio
Paul is a top-notch business consultant
whose job has taken him around the world
multiple times. He even lived abroad
extensively with his family, moving between
continents.
He is married and has two teenaged
children.
I actually find it
[planning the trip]
to be my therapy. So,
I find it therapeutic.
(...) It makes me feel
really good about
doing the whole
process. And I also
feel in control.”
“
Main Quote
Goals & Needs
Much more detailed information about itineraries, excursions and
logistics.
“One thing that comes to mind is thinking about how much time you need to spend not just
doing the looking for things but also how you plan. Say, for example, you were in a place for
only one day. How should you best use your time there? Because I think again you can under
or overestimate how much time you've got.” (PG)
“I had to get her a visa when we got to Kuala Lumpur. And everything on the internet said that
she didn't need one, that she could have a visa on arrival. And when we got there we found out
that wasn't true.” (PRO)
A trustful, unbiased source of information.
“Then you have to cross-check the information on that hotel with other sites to make sure that
that's correct. It would've been nice to have a trusted source to know if you go on that website,
these hotels or bed and breakfasts or whatever are truly vetted, and you can trust that
information.” (PRO)
A richer description of the experience they are going to live to
understand if it’s worth it.
“I'd like to know more about the character of the place. I think they could be much more
conversational in the way that they describe. Maybe they could get people who maybe write
articles that you could then have a link to. Or someone who's taken some amazing kind of
video or photography, or just some way that gives you more of a kind of a much more
enriching experience.” (PG)
Some inspirational resources to deepen their knowledge about the
destinations.
“They're often somewhat sketchy. And I've never seen them include additional enrichment
material. I think it would be great to say, well, you're going to be in Munich, here's three books
you might want to look at before you go. Yale does that with their tours. They'll have
recommended reading before you go on the tour. I've never seen a cruise line do that, and
maybe there's not a demand for it, but as long as I'm getting a vote, that's mine.” (PG)
Dimensions
Delegating Independent
Planning Autonomy
Cautious Confident
Technology Attitude
Improviser Planner
Planning Approach
Conservative Explorer
Discovery Attitude
0
Casual Researcher
Depth of Research
Travel Habits
They take trip vacations according to both their work schedule and their
children’s school schedule.
“Generally, the top end of what we can travel right now with our business responsibilities and the kids
is about 15 days.” (PG)
“Trying to get all the schedules to mash up and get everybody in one place at one time is not easy.”
(PRO)
Although he likes to explore new destinations, he doesn’t mind going back to
ones enjoyed in past trips. He often adjusts itineraries to include visits to friends
abroad.
“So we've got this kinda tension between doing things that are brand new and doing things that
we've done before.” (PG)
“Our trips are always around places where we can hook up with and meet up with people. Or go to
places we haven't been to before or places we've been to and we really love.” (PG)
They also established their own family traditions and have preferred
accommodations.
“In Jamaica, we go to a very nice, sort of high-end, all-inclusive resort. Booked a suite resort. So it's
pretty expensive. But we do that every Christmas. And bring the kids.” (PG)
“There's actually a bit of a place we love going to every time we go to Scotland, it's called in the
Inverlochy Castle Hotel, is actually a genuine Scottish castle.” (PRO)
Upcoming travels are chosen by balancing geography, personal interests and
new perspective on repeating destinations.
“The bucket list will always include probably even places that we have been to, but then we
actually go to other places, okay? (...) I know really the country inside out, but I have never looked at
Japan from a cruise point of view.” (PG)
“So, it's really more around parts of the world that we haven't been to, rather than specific (...) I think
we're probably changing a bit now to bucket list being almost the journey, rather than the
destination, right. I think we're really enjoying this high-end cruises to really nice, neat places. I
suspect that those are gonna become... I'm intending to sort of retire in about four years or so. So, I
mean that's the sort of stuff that we would intend to do a lot more of.” (PG)
Their bucket list, which is digitally stored, is filled up with contributions from all
family members.
“We had talked about several different destinations, most of them, I would say the majority of them
in Europe. And we narrowed it down to about I want to say five or six that we thought were feasible
both financially and as far as time wise. And then, we all kind of voted on our top 3 individually and
then folded it together.” (PRO)
Inspiration for future travels come from direct research or from friends’ and
family recommendations.
“With Mexico, my daughter had some friends that stayed at this location. So it just caught on with
her, and she suggested, "Hey, why don't we all go and rent a large house and stay all together?"
Which we did.” (PRO)
“Then it's just seeing maybe an article in Conde Nast or stuff like that, maybe on the internet,
something that pops up that gives us a thing.” (PG)
“Australia, we've never been. Like I said, we've never been. I have a first cousin that lives there, he
travels over here, so it's not that we haven't seen each other. But I've heard so much about that
country, and New Zealand.” (PRO)
Given his extensive knowledge of countries and cultures around the world, he is
not starting his research from scratch.
“So I lived in the Philippines, I lived in Hong Kong and I lived in Japan. So obviously because of that,
you know also about the seasonalities. You know when you want to travel where in what season and
what season is probably not a good idea, whether it is because it's extremely busy or let's say
extremely unpleasantly hot or it could be the rainy season or it could be even a typhoon season.”
(PG)
He is very thorough in collating information and extremely detailed data about
activities, locations, restaurants, and accommodations. He tends to research as
many sources as possible, comparing and cross-referencing.
“Well, I tend to over-research everything. I like to kind of get in and see all the details myself.”
(PRO)
“Plus, when you're investigating a hotel, or an apartment, you need to see what the neighborhood
is like. (...) And then you can go on Google Earth and find the church, and kinda get the general
alignment and see exactly where it is (...) You're really never surprised if you do the homework. And
one of the worst things you can do is spend $30,000 on a trip, and then go someplace and be
disappointed.” (PG)
“[You should] consider as many sources as you can for ideas and information. Like falling down a
rabbit hole.” (PRO)
He doesn’t completely trust online reviews, which, in his opinion, could be
biased; he uses them in an opportunistic way, to pull out additional details from
them.
“If you were reading the TripAdvisor reviews for example for Florence, Italy, often times little things
would pop up in the reviews about places that people had gone (...) that might be off the beaten
path that I might not have considered otherwise.” (PRO)
“Then you go on TripAdvisor and check on top ten. Alright, so I got the top tens already sort of
sorted out.” (PG)
Being a detail-oriented and a pretty organized person, he stores and categorizes
the information in digital formats, whether they are documents or spreadsheets.
He also ensures the files are backed-up and accessible while travelling.
“I type everything up in a Word document (...) If it's a booking confirmation via email, so I would
save all those emails in a specific folder as well on my phone. And I make sure I can access that
Word document on my phone as well.” (PG)
“Usually I put it in my computer, then I put it in a folder under travel on that particular destination
city. So it's all in one place, and then before I go, then (...) before I go, then I transfer it to my
phone so I have a copy on my phone. Also, I'll print it out and keep a copy in a folder” (PRO)
Information Gathering
He is an obsessive planner who wants to keep everything under control. His
need of detailed planning comes from fear of surprises and of the unexpected.
“I like to know what I'm doing. I like to be prepared. I don't like big surprises.” (PG)
“One of the things Lisa wants to do is a helicopter tour, so we'll search Kawaii helicopter tours. And
then, having found a few, I actually, before we get in a helicopter – I'm kind of a nervous Nellie – I
will go to the national transportation safety board and look at their safety record.” (PG)
“I would Google it and I would say 'Any issues with' and then put the name of the ship or 'With this
company' or... actually I work in a big law firm, if I'm really interested I'll look to see if anybody is
suing them.” (PG)
He doesn’t trust anyone else to do the planning for him. He involves his wife just
for an inspiration or for a final validation of his choices, rather than for an actual
contribution on planning. He might share some of his research with the family to
stimulate their curiosity.
“I show the boys pictures of the sites that we're trying to get to. For example, Sigiriya Rock Temple,
we might watch a short video about it. (...) I might even go on Google Maps and have a satellite or
street view adventure, virtual adventure. So take them through quite in detail, to get them excited
about visiting for themselves. I wouldn't involve them at all in any of the logistics.” (PRO)
“I'm the one who figures it out. I'll get online and start looking for things. I've gotten my antenna
out all the time. And then once I figure out kind of what my wife will agree to and I know her
parameters, and then we'll decide whether we want to do.” (PG)
“I would say I do primary research and then the decision typically is made with some type of
collaboration or back and forth with my wife.” (PRO)
He doesn’t rely on travel agents for planning nor booking, since he doesn’t trust
them to be as detailed-oriented as he is.
“I wanna do research, I wanna know what's there. The nice thing is by the time I'm finished doing
that, I know a heck of a lot more about where we're going than if I let some travel agent do it.” (PG)
“I never use travel agents. I never use anybody to help me book trips. I just book myself, based on
the websites and stuff.” (PG)
Planning
He prefers booking their trips online, either through travel sites or directly with
hotels and companies.
“All independently. We booked our own flights, we booked our own hotels and our own B&Bs. Yeah.
All independently.” (PRO)
“I'm very comfortable doing all of that myself. I quite enjoy booking the trips.” (PG)
He cares about getting the best price as part of his research on planning. He
does it by cross-referencing different sites.
“The other thing is, prices. I shop around extensively, right? And I don't trust somebody else to do
that as well as I would myself. So when I find a hotel through TripAdvisor, you know, I'll go on
Booking.com, I'll check the room rate on Booking.com, then I'll go to the hotel website, I'll check
their direct price. (...) You could be quite surprised how much of a difference you can get when you
shop around like that.” (PG)
Booking
Pre-booking process
Legend: PRO = Prospects PG = Past Guests
7
Information Gathering
Planning
Booking
7
185
Goals & Needs
Personalized suggestions for destinations and itineraries based on
a set of parameters, which allows her to narrow down possibilities.
“It would be lovely if there's a facility, maybe a website for example, where you tell it what kind
of holiday you want, what kind of hotel you would like, where you're starting from, where
would you like to go, and then how many days you have, what sort of attractions do you love to
go to? And then it turns out a few different options for you. That would be great.” (PRO)
Immersive information (like videos and beautiful landscape
pictures) that make her empathize with the places she is going to
visit.
“I just didn't get a good sense of how authentic the trip would be and while it does fit the
description of what I like, like an emerging country I just couldn't get a sense of what it's really
like or if they just put together, the trip is so touristy that you really wouldn't get an
understanding of the people who struggle. So sometimes if it doesn't sit with me emotionally,
or I feel like I'm just going to go on this fake, have a fake experience, I won't do it.” (PG)
“From wherever we can access still photos from travelers. I might even go on Google Maps and
have a satellite or street view adventure, virtual adventure.” (PRO)
Roadmaps and itineraries involving activities like climbing, biking
and kayaking, and also beautiful spots for photo-shooting.
“We like to be a little more active. It's more like bike riding or walking or hiking tours or walking
up mountainside. Some museums, or some city just to throw that in there.” (PRO)
“And because we like going out and about and walking and hiking and kayaking and things like
that, so we want to kind of cram it.” (PG)
Last-minute solutions for long-distance and exotic destinations
allowing her to book short term.
“The other place is the Galapagos. That, to me, feels like it's very far down the list. I don’t know.
I think because it just feels to me like it's not something we can plan in a relatively short time.”
(PRO)
Emma
Explorer
Female, 62 years old
Bio
She lives with her husband in their
country of origin, and works full-time for a
large law firm. She owns a house in
Europe that they use as a base for
travelling to other continents; she also
goes to Europe at least once a year to visit
her family.
Their journey had
been highly
curated by a
top-end luxury
holiday company,
which actually was
a bit too safe for us.
I wanted a little bit
of danger, a little
bit of adventure.”
“
Main Quote
Dimensions
Delegating Independent
Planning Autonomy
Cautious Confident
Technology Attitude
Improviser Planner
Planning Approach
Conservative Explorer
Discovery Attitude
0
Casual Researcher
Depth of Research
Travel Habits
She fancies trips to remote and exotic places that include a lot of unusual and
adventurous activities. As a couple, they tend not to cover touristic and
over-crowded paths and prefer to explore less known places.
“We actually like to go places that are more remote, so it's more of an adventure for us. So it might
be a bit of trekking, maybe taking the vehicle up to precarious rocky places.” (PRO)
“We're very active when we go on holiday. My husband and I, we're not lying-on-beach type of
people. We never, ever do that. So for us it's about going and spending lots of time going out and
about and looking at things. We like walking, just doing lots of activities.” (PG)
“We both, we like immersive experiences so we'd like to be, no need to go to super touristy places,
we've done all that in Italy. Being somewhere maybe a little bit off the beaten track where it's just
not overrun by people that look like us is always appealing.” (PRO)
She travels for maximum two weeks, and typically off-season due to work
reasons, and because she likes to visit places when they are not flooded by
tourists.
“It just is too much organizing and just too much ... It would probably not be appreciated as well if I
disappeared every year for three weeks. That's sort of over and above.” (PG)
“We like to travel off season. It's just less stress. It's easier to plan for work purposes. It's also less
busy.” (PRO)
She is an experienced amateur photographer, always looking for
beautiful landscapes and secret spots to capture with her camera.
“We're also avid photographers, so we will always look for that kind of opportunity. (...) We booked
a wedding photographer in Venice, who promised to take us to unusual photo spots in Venice.”
(PG)
On her bucket list are places where they haven’t been, and
experiences she has not done yet. They usually don’t repeat the
same destination twice but if they do, they’ll uncover new angles to
it.
“Well, it's an area that we haven't been to, and since we haven't been there we're exploring the
world as we can.” (PRO)
“So I have a bucket list and I have things that I have not done in my life. My husband and I both
traveled extensively, but didn't do everything of course.” (PG)
She feels like she doesn’t need to do a lot of research beforehand.
She just looks for places and activities out of curiosity.
“We don't over-research destinations to the nth degree because we have traveled quite a lot. By no
means have we been everywhere, but we're fairly familiar with the kinds of places that we're likely
to go to.” (PG)
“We're very active when we go on holiday. My husband and I, we're not lying-on-beach type of
people. We never, ever do that. So for us it's about going and spending lots of time going out and
about and looking at things. We like walking, just doing lots of activities.” (PG)
“I'm just curious. Just curiosity. Just a desire to ... I like to know what I'm doing.” (PG)
She usually starts the process of collecting information for her next trip by
asking friends and family members. She often relies on recommendations from
friends and other travelers, and she both reads and writes reviews online.
“I would probably first of all start by asking friends and family. So a lot of our friends are very
well-traveled. My sister and her husband travel all the time. So I would probably start with that,
and then I'd probably also look online.” (PG)
“I'm a Google local guide and then I'm also fairly highly-ranked on TripAdvisor, so I do participate
in reviewing and leaving my opinions on the Internet. So I rely heavily on those types of sources to
help me.” (PRO)
“We have friends who are experienced travelers and they might have experienced something or
gone to places where we haven't been or things that we have left out.” (PG)
She uses a mobile app to store all the travel information, because she prefers
having them all in the same place and with her all the time.
“I used the TripIt app, and stored some information in there just to have it all in one place for me.
Yeah, so it's just storing your basic travel information. Flights, all the flight information, if you have
a rental car, you can put the info in there. It'll send you reminders about upcoming trips and hotel
stays.” (PRO)
“As you upload that app for instance, you can also have all of your tickets electronically on your
phone. So you don't even have to print them out. You can print them out for back-up.” (PG)
She has a relaxed attitude when things don’t match her expectations, since she
lives for the day when travelling. She learns from her mistakes and takes stock of
them.
“I learned the hard way when I was off by – you know, when you're flying and it's the next day and
you're off. I actually screwed up my stuff and I learned.” (PG)
“We were in Cuzco for an hour and a half. You have a hotel room, but you can't sleep. Just a lot of
logistics that are challenging. I, personally, don't mind it that much, but it was difficult and I
understand.” (PG)
Information Gathering
Considering her workload, planning for her is time-consuming and
feels like work; she also prefers having no constraints on time or
scheduled activities, leaving time for serendipity.
“Not that I don't enjoy it, but it's time-consuming. Even with all the great resources out there, there's
a crazy abundance of travel data.” (PRO)
“So we'll get into town, we'll play it by ear. We're gonna go to pubs and drink a lot of Guinness and
just what I would call, have a pretty low-key holiday in terms of not really getting too heavily into
choreographed activity but still having fun.” (PG)
“If you've got it all mapped out in too much detail, you just sort of feel like you're ticking things off a
list rather than improvising on the floor.” (PRO)
She likes to profit from other people’s experiences, because she
feels she is saving a lot of time, while others have worked hard
researching and planning.
“I think in general is because if someone I know I can trust has been somewhere and they've
enjoyed it (...) so I kind of feel like they've done the hard work of researching for us.” (PRO)
“What would make my life easier. Somebody that thinks like me to do the work for me. A nice
doppleganger.” (PG)
She uses travel agents only when it comes to booking elaborate
itineraries. She appreciates them solving any issues they might have,
and also their experience in getting better rates.
“We use a travel agent for more complex bookings, like if we're going multi-destination, if we feel
our travel agent (...) can book more favorable rates.” (PRO)
“The advantage of a travel agent, of course, is that you can just call them and they can fix any issues
you've got. I was in Shanghai a couple of years ago and my house flooded and I needed to get
back, so I just phoned my travel agent and she just organized my return fares and my insurance and
everything else. She made it quite simple.” (PG)
Planning
Booking
She doesn’t like to organize her trips in advance, and usually books
last minute because she can get good deals this way.
“We tend to be very last minute when it comes to holidays.” (PRO)
“But we're not big forward planners, to be honest with you. We tend to be quite short-term.” (PG)
“The China, Japanese thing we did almost last minute last year 'cause it was such a good offer.” (PG)
She is used to booking online, and checks out both travel and hotel
websites.
“I have one favorite airline that I fly with. I just look up a schedule that fits, and book the trip, and
find some way to get to the airport.” (PG)
“Online. A lot of online. Booked B&Bs online independently. We did use Costco. I can't remember if
we used Costco that time or not. We used Costco to book at least the trip over to Costa Rica.”
(PRO)
She cross-checks airfares with travel agents to see if she can get a
good deal.
“As far as air ticket is concerned, normally I check online first. (...) then the next thing is I'll give the
opportunity to a travel agent or one or the other. And check if they can match it or better it.” (PG)
Pre-booking process
Legend: PRO = Prospects PG = Past Guests
7
7
Information Gathering
Planning
Booking
187
Sam
Stable
Male, 73 years old
Bio
Sam is a retired business man and Navy
officer, which brought him to travel a lot
across continents. He is enjoying this
quiet stage of life with his wife, since their
children left the nest a few years ago.
It's a matter of:
do we have friends
going somewhere?
Hey, let's go with
them! And not really
think about where
we want to go, but
that they've already
booked theirs.”
“
Main Quote
Dimensions
Delegating Independent
Planning Autonomy
Cautious Confident
Technology Attitude
Improviser Planner
Planning Approach
Conservative Explorer
Discovery Attitude
0
Casual Researcher
Depth of Research
Goals & Needs
Finding the ideal travel company for them, one they could trust
and go back to.
“Then we've gravitated towards the luxury line. We've done Regent, Seven Seas. We've done
Seabourn twice and this will be our second Silversea. The real reason is we're looking for one
line to stick with.” (PG)
“Our cruise line of choice is Celebrity. We started sailing with them probably about 20 years
ago. (...) Anyway, we've been sailing with them for a while and whenever we get a chance, we
go with them because, number one, it's just like flying with the same airline or something, you
collect affinity points for dealing with the same people all the time.” (PRO)
Clearer information on excursions and travel tips to set their
expectations right.
“As an example, on our last trip on Seabourn, I'm pretty good at reading between the lines on
shore excursions, but I fell for one that was just primarily a shopping trip, and we missed what I
would have much preferred to see in the area. So that would help a lot, that kind of
information.” (PG)
“That's the good thing we like about using, when we did Tauck was you really didn't have to
worry about anything. Everything was pretty much taken care of for you, when you use a
good company like that. (...) And they give you all the heads up about visas and cash you
should bring, and what diseases you should be concerned about and that kind of thing. They
give you a good, you have a good understanding of what's expected.” (PG)
Advice on both weather at destinations and suggested attire on
board.
“So I didn't realize that going in December around New Years, which is when we like to go,
that's when the greatest risk of just terrible fog and smog is (...) For example, we went to the
Taj Mahal, but we couldn't see it, we could go in it but it was all fogged in. I guess I need to
pay more attention about not just weather, temperature.” (PG)
“It would be good to know about when's the best time of the year to go. So like something
around a calendar. And then the other thing, I know this is a real aside, I would really like help
with my wardrobe.” (PG)
Travel Habits
Given their relaxed schedule, they spend quite some time traveling in different
moments of the year. They indulge themselves in long trips that could last up to
three months.
“So we were on a Silversea expedition ship and we went down to the Antarctic. But that was part of
a much bigger trip, because basically we went away for just over three months.” (PG)
He plans mostly slow-paced vacations, often as a combination of long
itineraries, alternating land and sea, depending upon the area of interest and
destination.
“We fly to South Africa and then we go onto the Chobe River. We'll board the AmaWaterways boat
there for a little four day cruise on the Chobe River. And then we'll see Victoria Falls and we'll go
to Johannesburg and then we'll end up in Tanzania.”(PG)
“It appeals to our sensibility of slow living. Smaller boats, upscale experience, it's all about chilling
out and eating good food, and then getting off the boat to a really cool destination and being
able to see a lot of things, and get back on the boat.” (PRO)
He likes long-term, reliable relationships with people, and this transfers to his
relationship with travel companies. He likes going back to a familiar environment
where his expectations are always met.
“Silversea is a known brand to us. My wife, in particular, likes the familiarity with getting on board,
because we know exactly where everything is, how everything works. It’s more like meeting a
load of people you know, like old buddies rather than new.” (PG)
“Well, about 12 years ago I wanted to go to Africa, and Abercrombie and Kent is very well known
for its safaris and so we chose [them and] had a terrific experience with A & K, and then Brazil was
my seventh trip with A & K; I went to Morocco with them, went to ... Gosh, a bunch of places.”
(PG)
His bucket list is constrained by their ability to undergo itineraries and
destinations.
It is not formalized, and he discusses it with his spouse.
“Sometimes it's just that we've kind got a list sort of in our heads. And with my husband and I, for
us it's about doing things before we get too old to do them.” (PG)
Their trips are inspired mostly by their friends’ plans and suggestions. He doesn’t
mind going back to a destination they know or repeating an itinerary or a cruise,
as long as the company is good.
“All our friends are going to be empty-nesters too; that type of travel we're looking to book more
with our friends.” (PRO)
“Well, we actually met three couples that we became really good friends with, and one of the
couples are traveling all the time. At the time we visited them, we decided to go on a cruise
together, the Silver Sea cruise to Iceland with them. We never thought much about going to
Iceland, but when I looked into it, it was just fantastic.” (PG)
His way of collecting the initial information about an upcoming destination
begins with reading interesting travel sections in newspapers. Then, he will
continue by looking at guides, books and also websites.
“And the other thing I think is really good, there's some very, very good newspapers and
magazines in the UK. [...] Like the Telegraph, The Sunday Times and the Guardian. (...) And they
have very, very good travel sections in them, and they also publish quite a lot that you can access
online.” (PG)
“I'll go to the bookstore, and I'll get a photo or something of that nature, and I'll buy a book that I
can read at my leisure, as opposed to having to look at something online. Because as I read at
leisure, it'll pinpoint various things. And then, I can go online and see what those are.” (PRO)
He doesn’t trust online reviews much: he prefers relying on advice and
recommendation from friends and people he knows well.
“There is a lot of people who look on things like TripAdvisor. And I might have a look at that. But
the problem with TripAdvisor, I think it's very much it's a bit self-fulfilling and I don't think it
necessarily reflects a very objective viewpoint.” (PG)”
“We have friends who are experienced travelers and they might have experienced something or
gone to places where we haven't been or things that we have left out. So that's in an information
gathering.” (PG)
He prefers storing the information he collected as hard copies, rather than
digital. Once everything is organized in a folder, he would bring it along with him
during the trip
“He prefers storing the information he collected as hard copies, rather than digital. Once
everything is organized in a folder, he would bring it along with him during the trip.
“I actually use an old-fashioned pocket file (...) which normally, like, you know, 20 pocket files. It's
quite thick, okay, and then you actually stuff per pocket just maybe one destination.” (PG)
“I'm old school, so I will write down and print out confirmations so that I've got the itinerary printed
out as well.” (PRO)
Information Gathering
He enjoys spending some time devising their next trip. It’s a fun activity for him,
and the anticipation it’s part of the excitement for the upcoming travel.
“I sort of enjoy doing it. I mean, it's fun, so the time that it takes doesn't really bother me.” (PRO)
He often does the initial planning about a destination or draft itinerary in
collaboration with his wife.
“I do 95% of the work and I'll go over it with my wife like when we get to a preliminary list of what we
wanna see, and then she'll add to it, or take away from it depending upon her input.” (PG)
Once he identifies an outline of the intended itinerary, which is not overcrowded
with activities and details, he hands it over to his long-known and trusted travel
agent for sorting out the rest.
“I'm a relationship person and I've got a terrific relationship with this travel agent here in Dallas now.
They've planned so many things for us. I know I've got three people over there that you get on the
phone, and there's three people trying to figure out how to help you.” (PG)
“I could have probably done all the research, but it's just so time consuming starting from scratch.
So we decided, actually it was my husband that reached out to a couple different travel groups to
get some information.” (PRO)
Planning
When it comes to booking, he prefers to deal directly with a human, whether it is
in person or by phone. He doesn’t really trust purchasing over the internet for
these types of travel, with the only exception being airfare, which he sometimes
books himself.
“Half the time you can't even get to talk to a person once you've done something online, and you
go through and end up talking to some algorithm. I just don't want to do that. In terms of luxury,
the more you want to feel that you're talking to someone who's an expert in it”. (PG)
“I might do the research online, but then I like to talk to people and I like the fact that I'm talking to
a person one-to-one and they can give me some advice about doing this or that.” (PG)
Even if price is often not an issue for him, he still enjoys getting a good deal upon
booking. He therefore prefers booking quite in advance or using loyalty points.
“We will have something in mind, but we virtually always book on board simply because you get
an extra level of discount if you book on board.” (PG)
“We just book through Delta because we have status and we try to book through Marriott because
we also have status there.” (PRO)
Booking
Pre-booking process
Legend: PRO = Prospects PG = Past Guests
7
Information Gathering
Planning
Booking
7
186
184
185
7.1 Personas for business strategies
7.2 Personas for guiding structure, content, and design
Conclusions
07
Through this research we identied the main types of customers
based on their dierence in travel behaviors with their specic
goals and needs. The results are also evident about the dierent
ways of gathering information and discovery of the brand through
several touch points. From these results, it will be useful for the
brand to re-design more than one touchpoints.
Fundamentally, these personas are the stories about dierent
mindset of user of oceanline- more accurately an archetype
representing the goals, behaviors, and attitude of many users
which will lead to tighter integration between user needs and
strategy, helping bridge the user gap.
These common stories are easier for people to digest, helping the
company to overcome communication gap. According to Harley
Manning at Forrester Research, personas as a “user friendly
interface” with a lot of data about users. A well developed persona
tells a story about a person, his or her needs, goals and processes.
At our core, human beings are storytellers. We like to tell stories
and we like to hear stories. So wrapping a strategy in a series of
stories about users is an extremely eective way for an
organisation to make everyone relate to a story about a user the
organisation is making a priority to serve, and about that user’s
goals and needs.
Users have a lot more power and a lot less loyalty now than they
used to have. Companies that take their users for granted often
nd that they lose users rapidly.To retain their loyal customers and
also to full the expectations of prospect customers of the
company. These personas will aid the company to align their
services to their user’s goals, behaviors, and attitudes.
Finally, personas will work because they are reusable across the
process, from strategy to execution, helping the brand to cross the
execution gap. This is the greatest challenge most
companies face, and happily, the one for which the personas are
best suited. By providing employees with well developed
personas that articulate user needs, a business communicates that
strategy more eectively and provides it in a way that employees
can easily execute. Personas will work as a framework for making
the day-to-day decisions that make or break the successful
execution of a strategy.
190
These personas will also provide a framework to redesign their
websites which creates focus and allows trade-os between
opportunities competing for the company’s website.On websites,
personas allows to internalize the needs of users, and prioritize the
features which would provide the most value to them.
By redesigning the touchpoints, the company needs to achieve a
balance between all the type of users inclusively making it
appealing and convincing to the user in an eective manner. With
this comforting them will all the type of information they would like
to have on their ngertips.
191
7.1 Personas for business strategies
Business strategies require a wider range of information, it is
concerned with the entire length and breadth of user interactions,
across all the channels in which the business is involved (and even
channels in which it might not yet be involved). These personas
can help to analyse the entire user life-cycle: awareness, intent,
purchase, and services. After this it will also identify the key needs
in each stage of the user lifecycle and the the key channels used
in each step: Website, catalog, store, phone. Finally knowing the
key weak points in the process where either the company is not
meeting user needs, or missing new opportunities to interact
with the user. Innovating business strategies with personas also
requires an increased focus on competitors. Since in many cases
the company may involve acquiring new customers or increasing
share of wallet with existing customers, it is always necessary to
understand the other businesses seeking to meet those user’s
needs. Once the company applies specic business objectives,
it’s important to have a way to measure company’s success or
failure in achieving those objectives. Most strategies have metrics
such as increased market share, increased share of wallet, reve-
nues, higher margins and reduced cost of service, as well as soft
metrics such as increased customer satisfaction or loyalty. Perso-
nas are a great place to include these metrics.
Strategy becomes something that the company does to the users.
A better way to look at it is that strategy is a way to fulll a user’s
needs that no one else is able to full. This way the balance of
power between business and user becomes more equal. The next
step after persona is building scenarios. Scenarios are a great way
of taking a business strategy initiative and describing it as a story
of user needs met by new business oerings.
192
7.2 Personas for guiding structure, content,
and design
There are two steps in which personas can be used to establish
the scope of a project :
Brainstorming - potential features, functionality and content based
on the persona’s goals, attitudes and behaviors.
Prioritizing - what should ultimately be in scope, based on what’s
important to the personas.
Users come to the site with at least one goal in mind. Personas
helps the company to understand and document those goals for
each type of users. Each goal will be met by specic features or
content (and thus ideally lead to business results). Every goal of
each persona leads to ideas about content and features that could
satisfy their goal.
The above steps describes the further steps using personas
throughout the design process:
Structure: Information architecture, navigation and search. If in-
tended for a web touchpoint, restructuring the ow of experience.
Content : Improving the content of the website or other touch
points.
Visual design : How to communicate visually can be critical to
inform or persuade users. Prioritizing according to their needs.
User research is broken down into segments, which became per-
sonas. Personas have goals, some of which may bring life in sce-
narios, but all of which can be investigated through task analysis or
use cases. This analysis tells the company what they need to know
in order to design any particular feature or content, including how
to structure it into new features for multiple touch points.
With this the company can also analyse their services toward Past
guest and full their requirements and needs. Discovered and
dened design hints will be useful to develop and deliver the solu-
tions for increasing their services for larger mass of crowd which
ultimately aims to increase their number of bookings.
193
191
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I am really greatful all the people who are part of my life during
this journey, they have always enriched my life with their presence.
It is an honour to always have their support, love and care. I am
thankful to everyone for their patience and help. I know, this is just
a small word but “THANK YOU”
With this i would also say Thank you Politecnico di Milano. It gave
me a new home and a place to create my identity. I feel stronger
now thanks to this wonderful beginning of my career.
“ I was just a small girl chasing my dreams, now i know the path to
achieve my dreams”
