[Case 04]
Understanding Travel Agents: A Cross-Regional User Research Study
Understanding Travel Agents: A Cross-Regional User Research Study
Understanding Travel Agents: A Cross-Regional User Research Study
AT-A-GLANCE
The Travel Agent Research Program was a multi-phase, cross-regional initiative aimed at uncovering the motivations, behaviours, and challenges of travel agents who form the backbone of TBO’s B2B ecosystem.
Over the course of six months (Sep 2023 – Mar 2024), our UX team conducted 70+ in-depth interviews and multiple field immersions across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, working closely with product and business teams. I led the design-research synthesis, defining frameworks for affinity mapping, persona development, and problem prioritisation.
The study’s core intent was to bridge the empathy gap between product decisions and real-world agent workflows — to move from assumptions to evidence-based design. We sought to understand not just how agents book travel, but how they think, decide, and build trust in a post-pandemic world.
[Industry]
Travel
[My Role]
User Researcher
[Platforms]
Desktop
Mobile
[Timeline]
September 2023 - March 2024
Key Outcomes
Identified 15+ recurring pain points around pricing transparency, booking speed, and multi-room workflows.
Discovered region-specific behavioural nuances, from price sensitivity in Southeast Asia to quality-driven preferences in Europe
User Research Report 2023 1.0.
Mapped three primary agent personas — Agency Owner, Booker, and Freelancer — capturing differences in goals, workflows, and digital maturity.
Established a TBO Agent Journey Map, visualising the end-to-end lifecycle from client acquisition to post-tour support.
Paved the way for a more agent-first culture within TBO, driving empathy across design, business, and tech teamsUser Research Report 2024 2.0.
Created a research-to-design pipeline, ensuring insights directly influenced future feature roadmaps (e.g., quotation tool, multi-hotel booking module).
USER RESEARCH REPORT 1.0
USER RESEARCH REPORT 2.0
USER RESEARCH REPORT 3.0
Key Challenges and Takeaways
Conducting this multi-market research taught us that travel agents are not a single user group, they’re an ecosystem. Each region, business size, and experience level carried unique motivations, yet shared common frustrations around speed, trust, and visibility.
We learned that:
Context drives behavior. Agents in price-sensitive regions made faster decisions but relied heavily on trust signals; those in premium markets valued content quality and partnership credibility.
Empathy scales through structure. Turning qualitative conversations into structured insights (via journey maps, personas, and frameworks) helped product teams act on research faster and with more confidence.
Collaboration beats silos. Involving business and engineering early in the research process built buy-in — the findings didn’t just inform design; they shifted organizational priorities.
Research is a living asset. The outcomes became reference points for later initiatives (TravelGPT, H-Next), proving that user understanding compounds over time.
The biggest takeaway: when design starts with understanding people, everything else; strategy, UX, product aligns naturally.
Your screen’s great, but the desktop version is even better.
