Airbnb: Smart Trip Planning
Type
Personal Project
Services
Web Design
End-to-end
Duration
09.2024 - 10.2024
Infos
This project reduces decision fatigue by turning the Airbnb booking into the starting point for smart personalized planning. It introduces a post-booking flow that auto-generates daily plans based on location and trip context while giving users control through editable options. The solution blends UX strategy, AI logic, and user research to help travelers plan with clarity and ease.
92%
Satisfaction
70%
Repeat Intent
Problem Statement
Booking process is not user friendly
The fundamental problem on booking sites is that travelers juggle multiple searches and apps to plan their trips. For Airbnb, this is compounded by poor visibility and reliability of its “Experiences” feature, which is making it hard to engage users. As a result, user trust has declined, contributing to lower bookings.
Solution
Seamless trip planning in one place
Whatever you’re into, we’ll make it work.
Share a few details with Airbnb AI,
and we’ll whip up a plan that feels just right.
Take Me
No, Thanks
01. Post-Booking Pop-Up
After booking a stay, users see a pop-up inviting them to plan the rest of their trip using the All-in-one Trip Planner feature.
02. When Does Your Trip Start?
Booked stay details are shown upfront to reconfirm travel dates, ensuring experience suggestions align with the user’s actual trip window. This helps surface only relevant, timely activities.
03. Who’s Coming With You?
Users specify their travel group (e.g., alone, with kids, with spouse, with friends). This input helps personalize activities. For instance, suggesting kid-friendly tours for families or romantic getaways for couples.
04. What Kind of Trip
Are You Looking For?
Users select general interests (e.g., Adventure, Food, Culture, TikTok Hotspots). These preferences refine the experience curation to match user intent and trip goals.
05. What Pace Do You
Prefer for Your Trip?
Users choose their ideal itinerary style: Packed Schedule or Relaxed Schedule. This lets the system suggest either a full, energetic lineup of events or a more laid-back pace, depending on the user’s mood and goals.
06. Color-Coded and Customizable
This screen shows a personalized day plan with distinct color codes for each category to guide users visually. Each section includes a Regenerate button for easy edits while keeping the plan aligned with the trip dates.
Research
What challenges are users facing?
To uncover user needs and frustrations, a survey with 20 active Airbnb users was conducted. The survey was focused on their trip planning behaviors and expectations. Participants were asked to reflect on their most recent booking experience and walk through the steps they took after confirming a place to stay. The goal was to pinpoint exactly where the planning process becomes difficult, confusing, or overwhelming, and to understand what kind of support users truly want during this phase.
Key insights:
Too many activity choices, not enough clarity
Users want suggestions but need flexibility
Switching between platforms adds friction
Plans should match real-world flow and timing
REDESIGN FLOW CHART
BETTER & Friendly User Flow
Creating user flow diagrams to visualize both the current and new feature was crucial to map how users would navigate through the new solution and ensure it addressed the core problems identified in my research. The visualization bridged abstract ideas and concrete design and showing how Enhanced Sorting, Integrated Activities View, and Personalized Landing Page would work together as a cohesive system. By comparing both flows side-by-side, I could clearly demonstrate efficiency improvements while accounting for all user scenarios.
Eliminated manual location cross-checking
Reflection
Designing Simplicity Through Complexity
Working on All-in-one Trip Planner was a turning point in my design journey. It taught me to balance AI automation with human-centered flexibility, sharpening my skills in research, iteration, and storytelling. User feedback directly shaped the experience and reminded me that great design is built through empathy.
As a personal project, one limitation was the lack of access to live user data. However, it opened up exciting possibilities for future integration with real booking platforms, where deeper insights could drive even smarter personalization. This project reinforced my strength in navigating complexity and using strategic timing and testing to create intuitive, high-impact solutions.