Develop a Sustainable Business Model Through User Research
My initial idea was to help undergraduate or postgraduate mainland students in Hong Kong consolidate the neccessary pre-trip prep information and find teammates to travel abroad together, because I frequently see posts on RED asking for this kind of assistance. But after conducting interviews with potential users, the topic and scope is slightly changed. During the interview, nearly all types of users (students/HK drifter/mainland Chinese with HK PR) said that they desire more information or services on local travel planning, since they have encountered problems in planning the spots-visiting route, transportation, food, etc. So I shifted my focus from pre-trip travel logistics to localized travel planning.
Beside the users, I was supposed to conduct interviews from the merchant’s point of view, namely the travel agency. But I found this part extremely difficult, because I have sent emails or whatsapp messages to some HK travel agencies but no any replies yet. I have also asked for help from our program assiatant since I know from other students that our school will have some closely cooperated travel agencies, but the feedback I got was they have lost connection with the travel agency. So I kind of stuck in a dilemma. Then I started to look for information online. I found from a media coverage that 31% travel agencies in Hong Kong reported that the “0+3” policy does not improve their overseas travel business at all, and 42% said it only improves by 10-20%. I then developed an idea to find those travel agencies who can provide localized travel planning services based on user’s preference, so that they can earn more money and the user’s needs can be met.
Bearing this in mind, I further shifted my focused persona type to HK drifter (港漂) who are from mainland and are currently employed full-time, so that they can afford this kind of service. After reviewing the interview script with this persona type, I found that most of them have a tight work schedule so they prefer to travel to nearby countries and will appreciate it if there is integrated information on visa application, which is also the service offered by travel agencies.
After the user research work, I finally narrowed down my project scope by choosing the persona who’s most likely to pay and matching their needs to travel agencies’ services. In this process, I have also realized the importance of thinking about a sustainable business solution when structuring your product initially. This will help us develop a real product with business benefits, instead of a interest-based information hub only, because you need to put efforts and costs to develop this website. You can access my website here.
