Challenge

Skyscanner has established itself as the dominant travel meta-search platform in many global markets. Having won trust in meta-search the business wanted to play a wider role in travel booking and support. The key venture is Book with Skyscanner (BWS) where Skyscanner handles the entire booking process (search, ticketing, after sales and support) without redirection to an operator or agent’s external site.

Approach

I was tasked with running discovery research to identify unmet needs in traveller’s journeys and opportunities for Skyscanner to refine and build on the BWS proposition. Within this there was a need to evaluate the appeal of several ancillary value propositions already ideated, but requiring further assessment and defined success metrics (i.e. fare locking, carbon offsetting).

Process

The research was conducted across three phases. The first consisted of in-person depth interviews with travellers in the UK. Phase two extended this out, using video interviews to broaden the qualitative sample to the US. Finally in phase three we utilised the dscout platform to conduct an online diary study across the UK and USA. The diary study methodology was chosen due to its ability to capture first-hand, in the moment reports for travellers on real trips. Qualitative research was run with 50 participants in total.

Outcome

The insights were then ranked according to the number of participants they were evidenced by. The process uncovered approx 60 new behavioural travel insights, with the top 10 visible across a significant proportion of travellers in UK and the USA. To seed the top insights into product development we planned a series of concept development workshops with key stakeholders. In the workshops we used the Value Proposition Canvas as well as benefit and feasibility ranking to feed into a concept development backlog.