Over the last few years I have used a number of online travel sites and found that they facilitated me searching for, selecting and buying flights, hotels or hire cars, the basics to get me to transact with them. However, the actual online experience is basic and does not offer any softer services or extend the customer experience beyond my transaction, meaning I am not brand loyal but price sensitive.

With this in mind, I decided to do some research into:

• New Online Travel Startups
• Companies acknowledged as innovative in the online travel space
• The use of mobile as a search, booking and service channel
• Multi-channel search and booking apps on a range of social networks
• Online travel review communities
• Online customer experience of travel websites

Armed with this research I developed an online travel proposition which went beyond the basic transaction and called it, Citeze.  Citeze is an online travel concept which puts the customer at the heart of the service and focuses on providing a bespoke travel experience from the point of booking through to the trip destination.

The deck below provides an overview of the companies I carried out desk research on and an overview of the citeze business proposition which includes:

• Draft user experience
• Core components of the multi-sided travel platform
• Online Customer Acquisition Strategy
• Multi-channel search and book applications
• In-destination mobile travel guide and personalised trip itinerary
• Customer Insight tools
• Business performance measures

I am always interested in learning about new online travel propositions and online customer experience developments in this area, please drop me a line or comment on the deck below.