Travel creators have few ways to earn an sustainable income without going through the partnership route with brands, yet brand deals are tempremental. Travis wants to leverage the power of the creator economy to create a sustainable monetization model, that allow creators to earn an extra, ongoing income stream even after the contracted partnership ends.

As Head of Product, I worked directly with our CEO to research, design and test various monetization models for the business - that would ultimately guide the product strategy and design of the platform.

This led to the introduction of a brand new product - Shopfronts for Travel Creators. This was a single place where followers can discover and book recommend products by creators at an exclusive rate. When they book, both Travis and creators earn a commission. We also started with Accommodation as a product category - the most crucial travel need - before planning to expand into Experiences and Outfits.

[1] Monetisation Model Research

I conducted research into different monetization models as well as existing options within the travel industry. Through team working sessions, we worked through what each option could look like if adapted to a travel use case for Travis, and also considered the willingness to pay by either travelers or creators.

[2] Monetization Model Options

Working directly with our CEO, we defined 3 monetization models for further testing:

Fee for service model: Travis helps travelers plan their trips for a fee, through:

• Paid Premium Guides: At $19-39, these interactive digital travel guides are curated by Travis in collaboration with local travel experts, supporting travelers who want to be in control of their own trip planning experience.

• Trip Designer Service: At $299-499, time-poor travelers are able to be matched with a verified Trip Designer on the platform, to create a personalized trip plan for them based on their preferences.

Freemium subscription model: Travis provides travel creators a platform to sell products and services to followers, through a monthly subscription fee.

• The free tier allows creators to get access to up to 10 product listings and take payments through the platform. This is designed for creators of all sizes to get started quickly.

• The premium tier at $39/month provides creators access to unlimited product listings, multiple product categories, analytics and engagement tools. This starts with a 14-day free trial, designed for creators who are actively building their income streams.

Commission model: Travis provides travel creators a platform to sell products and services to their followers, and earns a commission on every transaction. This could include:

• Creator products (e.g. photo presets)

• Creator services (e.g. 30 min planning call)

• Hosted group trips

• Travel product recommendations

[3] User Testing

I led 1:1 and group sessions with both Creators and Travelers to test and get feedback on the above propositions. We found that:

• Commission on creator product recommendations were best received. Travelers are already booking through creator’s recommendations, there’s just no way to attribute that back to the creator. Also, through brand partnerships, creator often give out a special code which generates bookings. However this stops after the code experiences, making it less likely for the creator to share the brand again.

• Trip Designer Service was perceived as an interesting model, as it acts as a new age travel agent to incorporate social media content in planning a trip itinerary. However ultimately there was less demand than supply.

• Freemium subscriptions received a lukewarm response. While creators understood the value of paying a subscription for premium features, they were unsure about their willingness to pay. From Travis’ perspective, this would also require a new number of features to be built or existing features to be gate kept.

• Paid Premium Guides were least attractive. Travelers don’t want to buy premium travel guides, as information is perceived as free and easy to get to these days. Creators don’t want to sell premium travel guides, as they view that as gate keeping information.

Ultimately, this led to the team focusing on a Commission model on Creator Shopfronts - allowing creators to earn via travel recommendations they’re already sharing, for example - when their followers book a hotel they recommend. This adds a layer of commerce that doesn’t exist today for travel creators, and acts in a similar way to LTK for fashion, or Amazon Storefront.

[4] Feasibility

I then conducted feasibility testing to better understand how we could scale the number of hotels offered on Travis to 1 million as quickly as possible - to allow creators maximum coverage of hotels they could recommend and earn from on their Shopfront. This included working with Engineering to understand how our product data structure could scale by working with multiple large hotel groups as well as different commission software.

I also worked in collaboration with our Product Manager to scope an early version of the Creator Shopfronts for launch, to generate a timeline for design, build and launch.

[5] Decision

Final decision was to implement the commission model based on multiple rounds of testing and refinement. We found that the Shopfront approach creates a win-win-win situation - for creators to earn, travelers to have a better experience with integrated bookings, and brands (hotels) to generate more bookings through creators as a scaled distribution channel.

Shopfronts are now used by travel creators from 20,000 to 1,000,000 followers.

Through optimization experiments, we’ve achieved 10x growth in the number of hotels added within 6 weeks, and +275% increase in bookings in 3 weeks.