Expedia escalates mobile travel disruption with innovation site, think tank
Expedia is doubling down on its commitment to digital transformation with an innovation-driven site where travelers can experiment with using Twitter for travel inspiration and group travel planning tools.
Expedia Labs is a new site designed to showcase experimental technology and travel concepts built within Expedia or through company partnerships. The company also recently held a Think Tank to broaden the selection of mobile-driven travel concepts on Expedia Labs.
?We?re dedicated to building new Expedia apps and experiences tailored to specific devices in order to provide maximum value and make it even easier for travelers to take their next trip,? said Tarran Street, global head of tech PR at Expedia.
?You can imagine that many of the current projects displayed on Expedia Labs could eventually be migrated for use on mobile platforms, and we will certainly look to showcase mobile-only concepts on Expedia Labs in the future as well for travelers to test drive new trip planning tools designed to make their journey easier and more seamless than ever before,? she said.
Dedicated innovation platform
Expedia Labs is meant to give developers a dedicated platform where they can test and expose new travel ideas and technology.
For travelers, Expedia Labs provides a portal where they can experiment with the latest trip planning tools and applications before new features may become available on Expedia?s sites and apps.
The travel-related projects currently showcased on Expedia Labs includes ExpediaThis, an application that uses Twitter to analyze inspirational images and provide users with the location of the image submitted and relevant Expedia content to facilitate travel planning.
Meet in the middle is a group travel planning solution that enables users to input multiple origins to find common destinations sorted by the lowest total cost.
Triplane is a tool that helps individuals and groups collect and organize travel inspirations into an itinerary by enabling users to collaborate and add activities from across the Internet to create a vacation.
The future of travel
All feedback on these and other projects that is submitted to Expedia Labs will be analyzed, shared with relevant teams and implemented with the goal of identifying concepts travelers find worthwhile and accelerating new product development.
To broaden the variety of projects on Expedia Labs and further cultivate relationships with those leveraging technology to improve the future of travel, the company held its first-ever Travel Think Tank yesterday at its offices in San Francisco. At the event, developer teams presented mobile concepts to a panel of experts, with each presentation evaluated for creativity, customer innovation, business merit and travel innovation.
These developments build on Expedia?s previous efforts in harnessing technology and innovation through hackathons and by exposing its internal APIs to the technology community.
?Travel is inherently mobile and at Expedia, we want to help travelers through their entire journey,? Ms. Street said.
?Our development teams are always thinking about mobile scenarios and how the Expedia travel experience flows between devices,? she said.
?As we expand our work with partners and look for new ways to collaborate with the developer community at large, mobile will remain a critical component of how we look to innovate and create new technologies and solutions for customers around the world.?