5. Choice – SIN to TYO
• 200 flight options
• 350 hotels
• Local transportation unknown
6. Do I need so much choice?
• Business travellers don’t need the absolute cheapest
• They don’t need the most luxurious
• They just need something that will get them to their
meeting in good shape
7. Solution
• Make all the choices for the user
• Apply heuristics to pick the best hotel and best flights
• Business travelers, so within reason we don’t need the
cheapest
• Give them options to veto, rather than options to wade
through
• Give them one click
8. What’s the least the user can do?
Input: start address, meeting locations and times
Output:
1 flight ticket
1 hotel
1 set of local transport instructions
Complete instructions for the business trip
12. Future Developments
• Automated email of plan to PA
• Login system and storage of “from” address
• Browser integration – click any address to plan a meeting
there
• Social integration – plan a meeting with your contacts
• Mobile integration – select any address to plan a meeting
• Google calendar & outlook integration
• Flight status integration with real time updates during the
planned trip
13. Commercial Opportunities
• Within the range of viable options, we are currently
making an arbitrary choice.
• Airlines and hotels can influence this choice by paying
CPC or CPA.
• Travel agents can bid to become the provider on the end
of the hotel or flights link
• Could provide interface and heuristics as a whitelabel for
OTAs or metasearch
• Display advertising
