Trivago: A Leading Hotel Booking And Meta Search Engine

Question:

Contents are pre existing information for end users. A content object might be a textual description of a product, an action photograph, an animated representation, or short video and audio. In this analysis, y u are required to:-

• Identifythe main content objects of  the Web  application, and their 
• drawa data tree (refer to the textbook or lecture notes).
• Write the high level content requirements, rationale and Fit criterion (if applicable). These will be proposed requirement, not what are existing there. Requirements at this stage have scope of product feature type (at least three).
• identifythe navigation structures of the Web site/sub-site.
• analyzethe navigation by answering the questions mentioned 
• Write the high level navigation requirements, rationale and Fit criterion (if applicable). These will be proposed requirement, not what are existing there. Requirements at this stage have scope of product feature type (at least three).

• Identify the epics and write the epics in appropriate format through the above steps in the initial product backlog. Each epic can be considered as a service proposed by the web site.
  • At least three epics based on above three models and each Epic should be related to one of the models mentioned above).
    • Specify the model for each epic and explain why it does fall in this category
    • These epics should be identified such that it improves the web site, not the existing epics in the web site.

Overview of Trivago

(Fig 1: Snapshot of Home Page)

("Are you a human or a robot?", 2018)

Trivago is one of the international based company based on marketing and the largest travel industry. It is also a German based multinational technological company that mainly specializes within various form of products and services based on Internet. The offered services and products provided by Trivago mainly consist of lodging, hotels and Meta search fields (Moore 2017). The majority of the stock of the company is mainly owned by Expedia Group. The business of Trivago is mainly considered to be of the best form of search engine based on hotel business within Germany. Based on a certain report of 2012, Trivago was considered as one of the most fastest growing companies within Germany as their level of profits had mainly doubled since the year of 2008.    

The company was mainly forwarded within Dusseldorf, Germany in 2005. The founding team of the company had noticed the space of market within hotels and hence the search engine was developed. The headquarters of Trivago is mainly located in Dusseldorf. The international operations of the company are mainly conducted and 90% of the work are conducted by the employees in the headquarters.   

In the travel agency, the business segment of Trivago would account for almost one-third of the entire valuation of these form of industries. There are some form of business travellers who would make an average of 20 trips in a single year with the help of high level of demographics. Trivago would make money with the help of various forms of advertising partners that make use of the cost-per-click (CPC) model. This was a necessary step for designing further updates within the web application. The main objectives of Ironman would be to improve the experience of the user based on the elements, thus making the application to be highly scalable and responsive. Different types of hoteliers, booking platforms and various other service providers list their rates and put their advertisement on the website of Trivago. They collect their revenue when a user would click on a particular option and thus would access the site (Kesting & Günzel-Jensen 2015).

The primary goal of Trivago is to provide their customers with a suitable and comfortable mode of accommodation. In order to achieve their goal, Trivago has launched their Progressive Web Application. The application developed by Trivago is capable of use within an internet browser and thus would not require a download from the application store. The application is also available for use in the offline mode (Del Chiappa 2014). The advanced form of web application of the company is able to provide the users with a smooth experience to their users as they have a faster loading time and are dynamic based, which would mean that the data within the application would be updated at recent intervals.

Functionality of Trivago's Web Application

There are various kinds of functions and features within the application provided by Trivago, which provides several opportunities to the people. Some of the listed functions and features that are inbuilt within the Trivago website or applications are that it provides the users to compare the rates, availability and various other parameters from a bundle of hotels. The functions of Trivago would mainly include to provide suggestion to their customers based on the cheapest hotels (Khan 2018).

Trivago has a certain model for their expansion of the processes within the business. They understand the importance of the various kind of offers. In order to attract various kinds of customers, they provide various kinds of offers and discount coupons (Kesting & Günzel-Jensen 2015). Though Trivago is a company, which is primarily based in Germany the customers who book hotels from the application or website are based in different countries from all over the world (Sharma and Singh 2018). The proposed form of major services that are provided by Trivago are:

1. They offer a wide range of language services for their different customers who view the site from their devices. This would help in gaining the customer base of the company as the customers would be mainly get attracted with the highest form of web view experience. The main services that are provided within various form of languages would help the users to understand the various options that are provided within the application (Borisov 2018).
2. Trivago offers an advice calendars within their website. This service would be helpful for showing the best form of affordable hotels that would be within the budget of the customers. The customers would gain a huge amount of help to plan their bookings, mark the important dates based on the trips and visit the top destinations within various countries. The calendar facility provided by Trivago would have the option of featuring 45 cities across various other countries that would be ranging across six different continents in order to provide them with the average prices of monthly based hotels (Rich 2016).    
3. The Hotel Manager functionality within Trivago is based on the B2B platform that would allow the hoteliers in order to market their provided facilities based on the decisions and the behaviour of customers. The platform provided by Trivago would be helpful in providing the hotels with the latest form of customer data, which would be helpful for securing the various bookings and thus increase the base of the business of the company. The different hoteliers would be able to monitor their performance that would include the number of views of the profile, the number of clicks and the various bookings of the hotels that would receive on a daily basis (Scholz and Voracek 2016).

The various forms of services that are being provided by Trivago would be able to enhance the user accessibility of the website and thus provide a better form of experience for the purpose of booking hotels in a best affordable fashion (Marine-Roig and Clavé 2016).

(Fig 2: User Hierarchy Diagram)

(Fig 3: Use Case for Guest User)

Sign Up – The Guest user would be able to sign up within the website of Trivago and would be able to view all the necessary details. Without signing up within the website, the users would not be able to book hotels (Kesting & Günzel-Jensen 2015). They would be only provided with the facility of viewing the hotels and search for the best hotels.

Search Hotels – The guest users would be able to search for the best hotels from the suggestion list and their provided choice locations. The guest users would be able to provide their suitable locations and the website would show them with various form of suggestions based on the various options.

Price Comparison – Based on the searched hotels by the customers, the web application would provide them with various form of suggestions of the hotels that would suit them within the proposed budget.  

(Fig 4: Use Case for Existing User)

Sign In – The users who have signed up within the website would be able to view all the details that would be necessary. They would be provided with all the details and facilities provided with the website.

Trivago's User Hierarchy Diagram

Book Hotels – The existing users would be able to book hotels based on their budgets. They would be also able to make payments for the booking of the hotels.

View Offers and Suggestions – The existing users would be able to view different forms of offers. The Trivago trip advisors would be able to provide different form of suggestions to the customers (Kesting & Günzel-Jensen 2015). These offers would be beneficial for the customers during the time of booking of the hotels as the prices of booking of the hotels would be deduced. This would also satisfy the needs of the customers and enable a healthy experience.

(Fig 5: Activity Diagram 1)

(Fig 6: Activity Diagram 2)

(Fig 7: Activity Diagram 3)

Trivago is a highly responsive website that provides a number of functionalities for the users.  The online consumers would wish to have a quick information and have a simplified form of simpler form of booking processes. They mainly prefer to gain the entire information at a single instead of browsing through all kinds of different similar websites (Crespo, Gutiérrez and Mogollón 2015).

The primary contents of the web application designed by Trivago would consist of:

1. Splash Screen– The customer should be able to understand the personal location of the customer and the performance of their work within the application. The entire steps that would be performed by the customer should be clear to the customer such that they would be able to understand the primary objective of the application. The platform provided by Trivago would be helpful in providing the hotels with the latest form of customer data, which would be helpful for securing the various bookings and thus increase the base of the business of the company.  The main screen would provide the basic opportunity of searching the specific city or the specific hotel at which they would reside. This is one of the most important decision of the user (Steiner 2018).
2. Progress Screen– This screen would allow the user to make to help in the selection of the data. The progress screen would be helpful for suggesting the user that all the hotel providers were being searched and the best available offers would be displayed after according to the search necessity of the user. At a similar time, the search criteria provided by the user should be displayed within the same screen at the bottom line of the screen (Nguyen et al.2016).

(Fig 8: Data Tree)

Based on the various requirements within the application of Trivago, it could be discussed that there could be some form of improvements within the requirements that would be helpful for improving the accessibility of the users (Bowman and McKenna 2016).

Some of the form of high level form of proposed requirements that should be included within the application are:

1. Header Navigation Bar– A navigation bar should be included within the application of Trivago. This would help for the purpose of accessibility of the user. This would help the users to navigate through the various options of the user (Litvinova 2018).
2. Location of Spots using GPS– The users should be provided with the functionality of locating the location of the user with the help of GPS. This form of functionality should be added within the web application. The application should integrate the functionality within the website so that the users would not have to provide their location themselves (Gonzalez 2014).
3. Password Recheck– The functionality of recheck or ‘Confirm Password’ should be provided when the users would sign up within the website.  

The rationale, which could be gained from the proposed form of frameworks is that this form of additional high level content requirements would be able to enhance the contents of the page (Kesting & Günzel-Jensen 2015). This would help in the viewing experience of the users so that users would have a rich feel during the viewing of the web application.

The criteria that are discussed within the high level of content requirements would be able to meet with the scope of the development of the site. These requirements would be able to fit within the project scenario. These requirements should be integrated in order to enhance the viewing experience of the customers such that they would choose the web application whenever they would need to view hotels.

The existing web based application of Trivago is based on the conceptual based modelling approach that mainly focus on the concept of designs. The navigational specification of the system is mainly based on these form of ideas. The increasing form of mobility demands are meant in order to keep up with the pace of growing number of devices and the advancing form of technologies. Some of the listed functions and features that are inbuilt within the Trivago website or applications are that it provides the users to compare the rates, availability and various other parameters from a bundle of hotels. The functions of Trivago would mainly include to provide suggestion to their customers based on the cheapest hotels. A proper form of advanced navigation analysis should be exclusively based on the requirements of the user and based on their requirements.

Use Cases for Guest and Existing Users

The developers of the website of Trivago renewed the core of CSS within the hotel search facility. They had migrated the previous navigation structure into a form of pattern library and had renamed the project as Ironman. This was a necessary step for designing further updates within the web application. The main objectives of Ironman would be to improve the experience of the user based on the elements, thus making the application to be highly scalable and responsive. The elements should be highly optimised within the use in mobile devices.

Before the implementation of the set values, there should be a proper form of testing based on which the users would be able to compare between the best websites. Online testing of the accessibility features of the website should be provided for use to the customers and reviews should be collected.

High level of navigation requirements based on tracing of the location of the user, searching for the best hotels within the chosen location, providing the best form of deals within the affordable budget are the general form of requirements that would be needed to be met in order to provide the users with a high level of viewing and browsing experience. The primary layout should be suggested to the users and they should be provided with the facility of testing based on which the developers would be able to set ideas about the need of improvement within the mentioned areas.

Based on certain form of high level of navigational requirements, it could be discussed that the list form of view within the web application of Trivago would be quite helpful and would be a best form of solution to the users. This would help the customers to compare with the best deal of hotels, rate the hotels and calculate distances, cost and thus view much high level of content.  

A proper form of model based on the layout of the website should be formed. AI based elements should also be included within the website for the proper use of the users. The font sizes within the website should be set properly in order to provide the users a better view.

Epic 1 – Search for the best options of hotels

1. The users are provided with the best form of options based on the choices provided by the website.
2. They are provided with the best of choices based on the predictive ability of the website.
3. The website makes use of high form of predictive analysis technology in order to make the use of best forms of options.
4. Various kinds of options are provided to the customers. These features are provided to the customers based on their needs and uses.

Epic 2 – Priority Options for Customers

1. The customers who are loyal to the company are provided with instant offers and other kinds of services.
2. They put priority on the customers who would be loyal to the company. This would be seen as a form of option for retaining the older customers.
3. The company lists those users who would be loyal to the company and would book hotels regularly from the website.

Epic 3 – Provide Offers to Customers

1. The company provide the best forms of promotional offers to their customers.
2. They also put various kinds of offers on the newer customers in order to attract the new customers.
3. The newer customers should be given the topmost priority in order to attract them. This would be helpful for building a large base of users for the company.

References

Are you a human or a robot?. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.trivago.com.au/

Baum, A., 2017. PropTech 3.0: the future of real estate.

Activity Diagrams

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Del Chiappa, G., 2014, January. Awareness, use and attitude of tourism companies towards Web 2.0: an empirical analysis of the Spanish hospitality sector. In 2014). Proceedings of the XIV International Conference on Marketing Trends (pp. 24-25).

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