This summer, Booking Holdings, the parent company of Booking.com and Kayak, announced that it plans to spend less on paid media and more on user experience (UX).
“By creating a much better experience for our travelers and solving more of the challenges they face when planning, booking, and experiencing a trip, we believe travelers will choose to book directly and more frequently with us,” CEO Glenn Fogel said.
If you’ve booked a vacation through either platform recently, I’m sure you’ve noticed the difference. Booking.com has dramatically enhanced Connected Trip, making it easy to organize every aspect of your trip via the website or app. Meanwhile, Kayak has launched some neat AI features which allow you to price check your flights and personalize your travel planning.
And they’re not alone. The world’s leading Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), hotels and airlines are now putting tech-driven initiatives and premium membership schemes at the top of their priority list - from Hyatt’s collaborations with Peloton to the frequent flier schemes that generate billions in profit for airlines.
The message is clear: Beautiful UX is in, inflated paid marketing strategies are out (or at least taking a backseat). We’ve entered an era where investing in “customer love” is the smartest way to generate ROI.
But as every company vies to give their customers the best experience, the pressure is on to innovate. In order to succeed, brands must continue delivering pioneering products that strike the right note with customers.
In the words of Fred Reichheld, the inventor of NPS: “Yesterday’s wow is today’s yawn”.
Surprise and delight
The best way to earn platform loyalty is to make the booking and travel experience easier. This can be as simple as a beautifully designed app that allows users to view their itinerary and book additional services, like an airport taxi, in a few taps. Or it could be a perk, like priority boarding or extra baggage allowance.
Anything that makes a vacation feel more relaxing and less expensive is guaranteed to be a hit.
In an age where mobile connectivity is non-negotiable, one pain point that affects almost every traveler is the extortionate cost of using a cell phone abroad. Relying on shady public WiFi every time you want to check Google Maps is a hassle every traveler could do without.
Fortunately, there’s now a better way. Travel eSIMs have liberated us all from greedy operators and given everyone access to roaming at local prices. Travelers can now browse, post, and stream at will, no matter where they are, with no shock bill.
For travel brands, there’s never been a better time to launch an eSIM offering. Roaming costs are rising and eSIM-compatible phones are becoming the norm. As a result, travel eSIMs have grown into a $30B opportunity that OTAs, hotels and airlines are well positioned to capitalize on.
Several major players have already entered the game. Agoda, Kayak and Virgin Atlantic now offer travel eSIMs through their affiliate partnerships. But the affiliate model grossly under-delivers on the potential of this product.
Affiliate links vs embedded connectivity
Let’s face it, affiliate links are far from ideal. In redirecting customers to a partner website, brands lose their grip on the user experience. That means they can’t ensure a seamless purchase journey or collect data on user behavior. They also lose control over retail pricing, product positioning and margin optimization, which severely limits the revenue potential of the product.
It goes without saying that, in ejecting customers from their website, brands run the risk of losing those customers altogether. Worse still, because referral attribution is a famously imprecise science, a large chunk of those customers are being given away for free!
A far more effective strategy is to embed travel eSIMs directly in an app or website. This not only improves the user experience, it gives travel brands the freedom to position connectivity more creatively within their wider business model. Rather than selling eSIMs as a standalone product, they can offer free roaming as a perk for loyalty club members or allow users to purchase eSIMs with their reward points. They can also test special offers such as family plans, business packages and multi-trip coverage.
These are the kind of creative initiatives that keep customers coming back.
You might think that native app integration would take months and cost millions, but that’s not the case. With Gigs, it’s possible to embed travel eSIMs in an app or website in four to six weeks with no coding required. Gigs takes care of everything, from checkout and billing to eSIM provisioning and customer service, and we offer the best UX on the market, allowing customers to get connected in one tap.
With the pressure on travel brands to deliver ever more premium experiences, embedded connectivity is a win-win. Travel eSIMs are a high-value, low-cost necessity that drive customer loyalty with minimal effort. By embedding them within their app, brands can save customers money and eliminate a major stress point felt by billions of people worldwide.
This is exactly the kind of solution that will, to quote Fogel, ensure users book directly and more frequently on your platform.
To learn more, get in touch.