The mission
Beautiful Destinations is a global travel brand that exists to drive economic development through tourism and be the largest purpose-driven travel brand for modern travelers. They gave us the task of developing a product/service that doesn’t currently exist that could help their core audience of heavy social media-using Millennial travelers better connect with the brand, and become a useful and handy tool for both these travelers and the locals of the various places they travel to.
Class: Innovation
Skills: Experience Design, Brand Strategy
Year: 2020
Teammates: Akin Abode, Max Farinholt, Joe Rilley, Danielle Scott-Patxot, Krista Stanley
Business challenge & market situation
Challenge – Drive economic development through tourism with younger generations who are seeking more from travel and are wanting deeper, more meaningful experiences with local culture, customs, and even with locals themselves. While the global tourism industry is growing, unfortunately, ‘tourism leakage’ prevents travelers from interacting with local communities to the fullest extent — meaning not much opportunity is left for local people to profit from tourism.
Cultural situation & human truth
In 2018 82% of Millennials traveled, and 72% of them prefer to spend their money more on experiences than physical things. 66% of these travelers use a smartphone to book vacations and nearly 98% share their experiences on social media while traveling. Millennial travelers = adventure seekers. They want experiences over things. They want to experience countries/cities through the lens of locals as a way to soak in the full cultural experience – they want to find that “hidden gem”.
Business opportunity
Connect BD’s base of Millennial travelers with the authentic experiences of local customs, culture, and people they crave by helping them ‘get lost’. Streamlining these interactions will also help to achieve all 3 key areas of BD’s focus on sustainability, creating connections to people, places, and the planet.
Strategy
Sometimes you have to ‘get lost’ to find what you’re looking for. ‘Get Lost’ by Beautiful Destinations helps spontaneous adventurers experience travel, local customs, and cultures their own way.
Business opportunity
Connect BD’s base of Millennial travelers with the authentic experiences of local customs, culture, and people they crave by helping them ‘get lost’. Streamlining these interactions will also help to achieve all 3 key areas of BD’s focus on sustainability, creating connections to people, places, and the planet.
Strategy
Sometimes you have to ‘get lost’ to find what you’re looking for. ‘Get Lost’ by Beautiful Destinations helps spontaneous adventurers experience travel, local customs, and cultures their own way.
Why & how "Get Lost" will work
Our “Get Lost” app helps this newer, younger generation of travelers that crave authenticity and experience over things get a deeper understanding of the area they’re traveling in. It helps make it more intuitive to engage in spontaneous adventures, and serves as a virtual guide to better help them connect with local culture, customs, experiences, and people.
Each download of this app helps get out the BD name, and allows plenty of opportunity to monetize the experience by selling coffee table books and other mementos of the special travel adventures stored in the app.
Finally, Get Lost helps local businesses and the areas BD works with (or wants to work with in the future) because no matter where you are or how big/small your business is, Get Lost treats each business equally with no biased reviews or rating systems. This evens the playing field, helping travelers find “hidden gems” off the beaten path, and gives the ultimate choice of what to do and where to go to travelers themselves.
