Travel

To start off my research into travel and travel apps, Jack and I took to a whiteboard to mind map everything that sprung to mind when we thought of travel. Initially, I had started this on a page in my notebook but I realised that I had to many ideas and the page became far too over crowded. This task was a great starting point for me as it allowed me to think of some things I probably wouldn’t have thought of without the help of someone else but also seeing it visually like this allowed me to expand on a few points. I think this will be a good thing to look back on if I ever come to a halt or am not really sure where to look next in my research.

 

Travel Apps

When beginning to look at travel apps, I brainstormed a few that I know of or had even heard about before. I then wanted to look at apps that I was familiar with or have successfully used before or even just generally browsed before so I made a list of a few things that I thought 3 different apps have done well based off my own experiences. Looking specifically into some apps allows me to look for any potential gaps in the market, what has already been done before and what hasn’t.

  

 

EasyJet 

As I use EasyJet a lot for booking flights and holidays, I took straight to the app myself to see the layout rather than researching photos of it. As you can see from my screenshots, the layout of the app presents itself well with effective use of icons in each category. It has easy steps to book flights, including a selection of airports to fly to and from and it also allows me to add my boarding pass into my Apple wallet so as it is easily accessible, I’m less likely to lose it and allows me to check in up to 30 days before I fly.

 

Citymapper

Next, I looked into Citymapper as I had just recently been to London for the first time and this played a huge roll into our daily travelling via public transport such as the underground tube. It was very reliable and up to date while also being really easy to use on-the-go. One thing I found very useful was the small icons of the underground on the visual map which allows you to see how nearby you are to one even if you have not much clue where you are.

 

Booking.com 

With Booking.com they do offers where if you book mobile, you can get your booking for slightly cheaper than if you were to book on a desktop platform. This is great because you can get a better deal just by using the same place for booking but on a different device, forcing more downloads on more platforms but also it can be frustrating if you are on a time crunch and need to just get a booking out of the way – some people would then likely pay for the higher price anyway which defeats the purpose of them having the lowest prices!

One feature I really like about Booking.com is that you can look at a map view of hotels in the chosen area and it allows you to visually see where hotels are placed if you aren’t familiar with a city while also being able to quickly compare prices. I chose to look at a busy time of year – St.Patrick’s day in Dublin which would be great for trying to find a cheap hotel but still in the city centre.

 

Other Travel Apps

Trip Advisor

Trip Advisor is an American online travel company operating a website and mobile app, also offering online hotel reservations and other bookings for transport, travel experiences and restaurants.

Trip advisor provides travellers with information they may need when booking the perfect holiday all by using user generated content – ie reviews from the public. Without the public leaving these reviews the company would seize to exist. This is because Trip Advisor switched their focus towards customer / user reviews when they noticed them getting a lot of attention as it didn’t cost them any money to produce this traffic.

They then created an identifiable logo of an owl which symbolises wisdom and knowledge. The owl’s eyes symbolise the choice that the traveller will make (green light = they should go, red light = they shouldn’t)

 

Google Maps

One travel app that is quite overlooked when you initially think of them is Google Maps. I use this any time I quickly need to find where I’m going in Belfast let alone anywhere else around the world. You can even tailor your directions to different methods of transport and can create your own saved list where you can put pins of your favourite or most visited places which is a straight-forward way of cutting out some time researching and finding exact locations and is super easy to use. I really like the tool that can show for example, lots of restaurants or even narrowed down to nice lunch spots. Maps even has a tool for searching for public restrooms.

 

Airbnb

Airbnb is an online marketplace that connects people who want to rent out their homes with people who are looking for accommodations in specific locations. Guests often find that staying in an Airbnb is homier, cheaper and has more character than staying in a hotel. It is an easy way to host and to travel. Their app is much like Booking.com with similar features only instead of hotels, their are more houses and apartments to book.