EXO travel is a tourism company with offices in Europe, Australia and in the Americas. It offers a wide range of tour packages for its customers, ranging from challenging outdoor treks to pampering packages in some of the finest establishments in South Asia.

Approach

Instead of offering customers “pick & choose” packages, it has a number of predesigned packages designed along with the “feel” of the experience the clients are interested in pursuing. It then tailors its packages for its clients accordingly, helping them pick and choose the perfect experience for their trip. It does not operate an online booking portal because it feels that it dehumanizes the process and does not satisfy its clients appropriately. By acting as a concierge instead of a booking agent, EXO believes they improve client satisfaction. This formula has worked as their operating have grown to 700 full-time staff and 20 locations all over South Asia.

Problem

EXO partners with multiple smaller operators throughout the region, helping them deploy unique experiences that other organizations cannot design. One of the major problems these smaller operators faced was booking transportation and hotel packages affordably. EXO negotiated partnerships with various transportation providers and hotel chains with discounts for its operators. However, the booking process became a major hassle, with EXO acting as an intermediary handling multiple calls and emails a day when booking for its smaller operators. This led to issues where they ended up with lost communication and very unhappy clients.

User Persona

The typical user for this app has a university education and is a “millennial”. They are comfortable using many popular apps such as Facebook, Instagram, lazada and shopee. Their major pain point is that as regional operators, local clients book trips to various locations within the EXO network. They end up sending these clients to other operators in the network, generating a commission but not making the bulk of their income which comes through pre-designed and bespoke experiences.

Solution

Design a unified booking platform for its external operators where they could book hotels and transportation for their clients. Including a redeemable point system called “EXO” to incentivize operators further.

Design Process

When designing the mobile app, we focused on reducing the user journey as much as possible so operators could book hotels and packages easily and effectively. The bulk of their operations depend on pre-designed packages so our major focus was to ensure effective mass booking. Results EXO operators reported upwards of a 47% in client satisfaction and a 20% increase in revenue for them. The point system was the major component that helped reduce their operational costs. With the ease of booking, the turn-around time for confirmation increased rapidly, with many operators saying that entire tour groups were booked within an hour.