Facebook Travel

Rahma Hussein & Kim Tran

The Team

Rahma Hussein Kim Tran

BI Analyst Aspiring PM Drexel University
Graduation: May 2020 Graduation: June 2022
linkedin.com/in/rahmahussein/ linkedin.com/in/ngan-kim-tran/

2
Agenda
Summary of Facebook
01 ○ Why did we choose Facebook?

Discovery & Problem

02 ○ User Surveys
○ Focus Groups

Solutions
03 ○ Prioritized Solution
○ Prototype

Go-To-Market & Value Proposition

04 ○ Facebook’s Business Model & Competitors
○ Metrics & Risks

Road Map
○ Future Additions
05
Why Facebook
Rahma Hussein Kim Tran

“No matter how far apart I am

“I learned English through FB, so to be physically from my friends and family, I
honest, I wouldn’t be here today somehow still feel as though I’m right
speaking to you if it wasn’t for FB” there with them ”
From User Survey ( 104 Responses)

76% stated that planning is the hardest stage of

their travel journey

72% stated that they most likely travel with friends;

69% stated that they most likely travel with family

89% stated that they are planning to travel in 2021

52% stated that they plan to travel internationally
and domestically
5
Focus Groups
Sim B.

Donny P.
“I have so many tabs open with
“We used a messaging group chat to information on things to do, where to
go back and forth with when everyone stay, and where to book.”
is available and things to do during the
trip”

Diana N.
El V.
“I wished i talked to locals more or
“Group planning is just annoying talked to friends who visited the place
because everything is everywhere to learn about hidden gems”
from Google Docs, Sheets, to
messages buried in the chat”
Problem Statement
Group travel planning is a disagreeable, complex and time-consuming process,
which is frustrating for travelers seeking an enjoyable experience.

How can we leverage Facebook’s Social Network and Strong Algorithms for an
effortless travel planning process?
User Persona

Likes
- Discovering new sceneries
- Having quality time with friends and family

Timothy Pain Points

Age: 28
Occupation: Full Time Professional
Timothy currently works as a Sales
Strategist and a photographer on
the side
- Limited free time
- Friends having complex schedules
Needs
- Stay organized in one place
- Maintain expenses within budget
User Persona
Wanda
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Wanda currently lives in
Philadelphia where she is studying
sociology and marketing. She is
the president of Delta Phi Epsilon
and works part time at the Student
Life Office
Likes
- Explore with her sisters
- Try new activities and food
Pain Points
- Time wasted on using several
tools/applications
- Cannot come to an agreement with friends
Needs
- notes, pictures, resources all in one
organized space
- Maintain expenses within budget
Proposed Solutions

1 2 3

Customizable Collaborative Travel

One Stop Shop
Itinerary Planning Portal

High Development Medium Medium

Effort Development Effort Development Effort

High Impact Medium Impact High Impact

 Design: Low Fidelity

Explore Page: User interview Insights Create Travel Page: User interview Insights

1. Create a better distinction from personal and
public travels to draw inspiration from
2. Create a drop down for “Your Travels” to upcoming,
Travels You Manage, Saved, Invited and Past
Travels
1. Option to Create a group Chat for members
rather than having a tab
2. Allow for creator to specify dates
 Design: Low Fidelity

Availability Tab: User interview Insights
1. Indicate that availability is automatically populated
by facebook
2. Allow an option to set a specific travel dates
3. Move Availability to about page as it is wasteful to
have a separate tab
Accommodation Tab: User interview Insights
1. Indicate that this is a voting system
2. Create an option where we can state if we have
a specific accommodation booked already
Design: Low Fidelity

Itinerary > Activity Tab:

User interview Insights

1. Indicate that this is a

voting system
2. What happens when we
vote Accommodation Tab: User interview
3. How do we move Insights
activities to itinerary
4. What happens when we 1. Allow uploading to calendar for mobile
don’t know what time we use
want to do things 2. Enable manual itinerary building and not
only automatic
3. Enable recommendations on the side
 Design: Low Fidelity

Main Tab: User interview Insights

1. Remove Chat since one can choose the

option to create a chat on the create page
2. Move availability to about and remove the
tab since it is a one time instance
3. Instead of Members & Checklist call it
Checklist
4. Instead of Files & Docs keep it to what is
Availability Tab: User interview Insights currently at Facebook which is just Files
1. Make it clear as to where can one
indicated their budget and total spent
2. Separate personal budget from rest of
the group and allow sharing or hiding
personal budget from members
Prototype

Check Out the Full

Prototype By Clicking
Here.
User Flow
Josh has 2 weeks of free time coming up. He
has a goal to explore Mexico with his friends Went on a trip
with friends
and fell in love
with FB Travel

Effectively
reached
consensus
Excited to plan amongst friends
a trip to Mexico

Discovered FB
Travel that offers
communicated
transparent
travel idea to Having trouble
communication
friends getting
consensus on
travel plans
 Go-To-Market

Pre-Launch Post Launch

○ Partner with: ○ Splash Marketing

■ Influencers and Travel bloggers
■ Flights/Accommodation Businesses
○ Reach out to Travel Agencies and spread
awareness of our new portal
○ Declare product on F8 Conference
○ Shareable Links
○ For Ads. Utilize internal platforms &
External platforms for targeted Ads
Total Addressable Market

105M of Facebook App. Monthly Active Users in North

America *

80M of MAU use Facebook App. for travel-related activities*

4.2B
Total Addressable market for Travel Portal in Facebook
App. considering ARPU $53.56

* between the ages 18 -34 as of 2020

Facebook’s Business Model and Competition

Business Model/Resources Competition

Google Travel, Search Engine

98% Ad Based Revenue Pioneer in Travel Advisory

The core resource that Facebook
maintains to generate this income is Brand Loyalty, Local “Experts”
user profiles
Strong Partnerships

First Mover Advantage

Facebook CTPP
Key Partners Key Activities Value Proposition Customer Customer Segments
User: Relationships Users:
- Users - Network Effect - community standards
- VIPs - Engage Users - Contact w/Friends - Geographic
- Chat/Comment - Manage impacts - Demographic
- Brands, - Platform Health beyond platform
Content Creators, - Content Creators - Passing time - Interest/Behaviour
- Entertainment - Safety, Privacy - Targetable
Influencers, - Innovation - VS free expression
3rd Party - Improve Apps and - Following VIPs micro-segments
- News - R/s to Business,
Websites algorithms Influencers
- Sellers, - Photos Business:
Advertisers Key Resources Influencers: Channels - By Size/reach
- Personal brand - Apps/Websites - vertical
- Service Partners Active Users
- - Immediacy - Newsfeed, - Interest served/
- Fact Check Content Assets
- - WOM/virality notifications, status targeted
Partners Ip, algos, patents
- Business: - Social media - Geography
- Tech Partners - Like Button - Penetration - Word-of-mouth - Partnership Type
- Developers - 3rd party Sitelinks - Native Ads - 3rd party websites
- Legislator, - Apps/Website - Word-of-mouth - APIs
Lobbying Partners - User Data - Advertising tools - Business tools

Cost Structure Revenues

Cost of Revenue: Sales & Marketing: - 98% Advertising-based - Various other resources
- Traffic/content acquisition cost - Sales & Support (own and 3rd party Pricing Models:
- IT operations - Marketing, biz properties) - Auction (CPA/CPC, CPM),
- Transaction fees development - Payment fees Programmatic
- Cost of Inventory General & Admin (developers) Marketing Objectives:
Research & Development - Legal & Professional - Consumer hardware - Traffic/leads/Conversion, etc
Competitive Analysis
S W O T
⬤
King of Online Search ⬤
Privacy Policies ⬤
Cloud Services ⬤
Decline in Market Share
⬤ Adaptability ⬤
Retired “Google Trips” ⬤
Non-Ad Revenue ⬤ Antitrust Controversies

⬤
Pioneer in the space ⬤ Validity of Reviews ⬤
Acquire online portal ⬤
New Technologies
⬤
“Just for You” Feature ⬤
Data Breach ⬤
Pricing Strategies ⬤
Combo Packages
⬤
Local “experts” ⬤
Replicable Business ⬤
Collaboration Ability ⬤
Strong Competition
⬤ Brand Loyalty ⬤
Brand Vulnerability ⬤
Diversify products ⬤
Increased Regulations

⬤
Numerous Partners ⬤ Intense Competition ⬤
Memberships ⬤
Lawsuits
⬤
Brand Awareness ⬤ Dependent on others ⬤
Mobile Products ⬤
Strong Competition
⬤
First Mover Advantage ⬤
Business Model ⬤
Introduce Technology ⬤
Geo-Political Factors
⬤
Large Margins ⬤ Lack of critical talent ⬤ Adjacent Markets ⬤
Increasing Costs
Metrics

North Star Retention User Engagement

% of users created % of return users % of friends/family

personalized that click more who are invited per
collections of than once in the collection/month
travel itineraries travel portal/month
/month
Risks

Cannibalization of Groups and Events

Competitors starting a Collaborative

travel planning platform

Technical Challenges
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○
Price fluctuations/sensitivities on time data
Web Scraping for auto populations
Road Map
Future Endeavors
Monetization Feature Enhancements Research
○ Implement Set up ○ Mobile Portal ○ Create a system
Payments for Public ○ Transparency & design including:
Itineraries and consensus when ■ Customer/Users
Personalized Services adding new members ■ CDN
reviving Travel Agency ○ Transparency of
■ Servers
services Confirmation
○ Strategy to acquire ○ Itinerary Check-in/went ■ APIs
new users Feature ■ Load Balancer
○ Partnering with ○ Hi-Fidelity of what ■ Web Server
Oculus/VR invitations look like
 Thank You!
Natasha Bateu Milap Patel
PB Mentor Case Study Instructor

Balaji Ananthanpillai Randy Shao

PB Mentor Critic

The Product Bud Fellowship Leadership Team

Predicted Q & A
There are a lot of features, how would you prioritize?

That's right, we believe that:

1. Explore Page as a landing page for Travel Portal is necessary for people to
explore local areas and draw inspiration
2. Sectioned Your Travel Tab is essential for travelers to stay organized
3. Obviously create Travel is an important feature for collaboration
4. Availability has been a large pain point and to enable automation of finding
availability enhances customer experience
5. Activity Tab is essential since reaching consensus has been a large pain point
a. It also allows to organize items in the calendar feature
Predicted Q & A
Explain a little more about TAM

Based on a study launched by Facebook, 87% of leisure travelers are influenced

by recommendations from friends and family when deciding what travel activities
they should book. This influence is untapped by Facebook. This Travel Portal is
able to showcase what their friends and family have done activity wise allowing
the recommendation algorithm to be further improved and targeted.

Currently the travel persona on Facebook App. is only served through groups
however finding activities buried in discussion tab is never user friendly.
Math:
258 (MAU North America) * 40.7% ( percent of users ages 18-34) = 105M
105M*76% ( of ages 18-34 who use FB app for travel related activities) = 79.8M
79.8M * ARPU/Month US$ 53.56 in Q4 2020 = 4.2B
Predicted Q & A
Explain your North Star?

The Lag outcome which is our goal is that people collaborate effortlessly on trips
the metric that will achieve that lag on the long run is the North Star Metric: % of
users created personalized collections of travel itineraries /month

People who created a trip/Total Monthly active users

Allows us to highlight engagement

Predicted Q & A
How does the payment model work for further monetization?

Facebook currently has Fan Subscription Pay out model under groups. An admin
can set up payments starting from $4.99 and Facebook retains 30% of the
payments.

This model can be used for businesses especially travel agencies and bloggers
who wish to monetize their expertise in setting up itineraries. By either selling
their itineraries or provide personal services for people. While this definitely will
not affect Facebook’s Business Model as it will stay largely influenced by
Targeted Advertising it still serves content creators and small businesses which
Facebook aims to provide services for.
Predicted Q & A
Splash Marketing Example: