March 16, 2023

Streamlining the Travel Booking Experience

Nick Armstrong

At Rocket Travel by Agoda, we provide our partners with a white-label solution that gives their customers the best travel booking experience possible. To continue elevating the user experience in our products and driving value for our partners, we developed a unified cart technology that revolutionizes the travel booking experience by allowing customers to book every aspect of their travel experiences in a single transaction.

Based on our expertise in the travel industry and extensive customer research, we know travelers prefer the option to plan and book multiple aspects of their trip at one time. The new unified cart technology available on Rocket Travel by Agoda’s white-label loyalty platform is a significant milestone in our efforts to provide a seamless trip-planning experience to our partners’ customer base, and drive growth for our partners.

Although the idea of a unified shopping cart experience is relatively common in e-commerce, it is not all that common for online travel shopping because of the complexity and work involved. Our team worked hard to deliver this innovative technology that elevates the travel booking experience for all Rocket Travel by Agoda partners and their customers.

How does the unified cart work?

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The unified cart technology enables travelers to purchase various travel-related products in one single transaction, earning loyalty points when paying for travel directly, redeeming those points, or using a combination of cash and loyalty points to fund the purchase. Furthermore, it allows the flexibility of booking one aspect of their trip and then returning to add another travel product to their itinerary at a different time. For example, imagine a customer initially booked a flight through a travel platform powered by Rocket Travel by Agoda. Later, that same customer can return to the platform and add a hotel stay, rental car, attraction or other travel-related products to their existing trip.

Collaboration driving success

To offer a seamless shopping experience and empower travelers with the information they need to plan their trips confidently, the Rocket Travel by Agoda team leveraged our extensive knowledge of white-label multi-product booking and cart experiences to connect various verticals in one. We analyzed quantitative and qualitative traveler shopping data allowing us to define the needs of a travel shopping cart, and tested the product in action through our Agoda consumer brand.

As in any innovation and technology development, there were challenges. Travel shopping is inherently complicated, even when just booking a flight or a hotel alone. These complexities multiply as you add more and more to a shopping experience. However, with our expertise in the white-label space and in offering facilitation (and other travel-related) services online, paired with Agoda, one of the leading tech-travel companies, globally, we were able to create a simplified and clean shopping experience. And, in true Rocket Travel by Agoda fashion, we are equipped to continue driving technology innovations ensuring our partners are positioned to deliver the best travel loyalty experience to their customers.

To learn more about our unified cart technology or to talk about how Rocket Travel by Agoda can help you, contact us here.

In-depth consumer journeys drive engagement throughout every phase of the customer lifecycle. A robust suite of transactional emails ensure customers have all the information needed at their fingertips from booking, to check-in, and post-trip. Dynamic cross-sell strategies allow us to drive high attach rates with other travel products offered by our partners, generating incremental bookings and boosting the value of each trip, and abandoned search and welcome series ensures customers understand the value of our partners’ travel platforms and stay loyal to our partners’ brands.

Personalized content leveraged throughout our emails, delivering a unique experience for the consumer. Our personalized email communications ensure each customer has all the information they need throughout their travels, easy ways to contact our customer loyalty team for assistance, and suggest travel destinations based on their personal travel preferences. This adds a level of convenience to the consumer experience and drives engagement with our partners’ brands.

Utilizing AI is quickly becoming a cornerstone of email marketing. Using artificial intelligence allows our marketing teams to quickly drive innovation through A/B experimentation. In testing, we have found it to be very effective at driving results and are developing new ways to leverage this emerging technology as email marketing services continue to expand.

Segmenting audiences based on previous engagement data to deliver new messages to the customer and drive continued engagement with our white label platforms.

Robust reporting enables us to continually optimize the performance of our campaigns, and keep partners informed of success and areas of opportunity at every phase of a partnership.

About the author

Nick Armstrong is the Vice President of Product at Rocket Travel by Agoda. With more than ten years of experience in travel technology, he leads the team of engineers responsible for prioritizing platform enhancements to drive growth to Rocket Travel by Agoda and our partners.