Business of Tourism : Travel apps need to better their game ! ( Deceptive Patterns research by Conscious Patterns , August 2024)

ASCI Academy (Advertising and Standards Council of India) and Parallel (a product design studio in Bengaluru) came up with some very interesting research on apps and their trade practices in August 2024. 

They studied 9 industries, 12000 screens and 53 apps. One of the industries, of our interest here, is also travel. They defined and studied 12 “deceptive patterns” – practices designed to get users to undertake actions or data processing that they did not intend. 

Travel apps used 9 out of 12 "deceptive patterns" . This is important to understand , because these apps are actually very useful and have become defacto go-to gateways for travel, tourism, holidays and transport. 

Even more crucial to note as ASCI -Parallel do in their research paper -  over 751 million users are online in India, and quite unknowingly, share massive data with anyone who asks!

What are these Deceptive Patterns? Very interesting definitions, and in many cases, are very intuitive too. We have all experienced these at one time or another, on apps and websites.

Deceptive patterns defined:

• 1.     Privacy deception:  getting you to share more info that is needed or intended.  (79% use this)
• 2.      Interface interference: highlighting some interface only, misdirection. (45%)
• 3.      Drip pricing: revealing additional fees slowly thru the process (43%)
• 4.      False urgency: creating artificial pressure of FOMO (32%)
• 5.      Nagging: constant pop ups (15%)
• 6.      Bait and switch – advertise something, serve something else. (13%)
• 7.      Basket Sneaking – add unwanted costs (donations etc)  (13%)
• 8.      Forced action – force users to do an action (make accounts etc) (11%)
• 9.      Confirm sharing – use social pressure to complete an action ( 8%)
• 10  Subscription trap -make cancellation difficult of a subscription (2% )
• 11. Trick question – vague language (2%)
• 12 .Disguised ads – blend with editorial (0%).

They surveyed 53 apps. This is the summary:

• 1.      52 out of 53 apps exhibited at least one deceptive patterns (“DP”).
• 2.      90% of apps showed between 1-4 DP.
• 3.      On an average, there were 2.7 DP per app.
• 4.      One app, had as many as 23 DP instances!
• 5.      Privacy deception accounted for 24% of total occurrences
• 6.      79% of all apps showed privacy deception. They really want your data!
• 7.      The travel apps use 9 out of 12 deceptive patterns – that’s a lot !
• 8.      Delivery and logistics used 8- very close behind.
• 9.      All 9 ecommerce apps made it very difficult to delete your account.

Travel apps use many deceptive patterns

One of the many industries they surveyed was travel and tourism. In this, they checked the apps of the leading players – EasemyTrip, Agoda, goibibo, yatra, makemytrip, cleartrip, redbus, and booking.com.

The list of DP that the travel trade uses, is not surprising, when you sit back and think- almost every DP is used in some manner or intensity. Eg- just a few that we all can relate to:

1.      Drip pricing (33% of all apps studied) – add on costs till final cost is something else !

2.      Confirm sharing – pressurize to get advantage of some deal at a point in the booking.

3.      Nagging – pop ups keep pressurizing you to take an action .

 These practices essentially underline the importance of data- the new black gold! Data like this allows targeted marketing and selling, reduces marketing and sales costs, and potentially provides a database for cross selling. Its inevitable that some data needs to shared to use services- just be aware of what exactly needs to be shared! 

After all, caveat emptor! 

Read the research on : https://www.consciouspatterns.in/research-findings

Business of Tourism: Over Tourism causes consternation, concern and chaos

There's a lot of debate and discussion on " over-tourism" these days, on the Internet, print and social media. 

Its a complex subject. On one hand, tourism brings in much needed funds into local economies, helping for services and maintenance, allowing governments to subsidize citizens costs. Clearly, London's museums couldn't be free if the city didn't get so many visitors ( Or may be called "spenders'). Likewise, the big gems of tourism- Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam or Venice, Athens in Europe amongst others. But for every city overrun in Europe, there are tons of others in Asia, the USA and Africa who would love to have (even if temporarily!) the tourism dollars. 

Tourism injects life, vigour, a virtuous investment cycle, jobs, general good feeling, and yes, often times, is a strategic tool in the political or economic arsenal. 

But there are definitely downsides. Too much of a good thing can be a problem. 

Over tourism I believe generally kicks in when local culture, life patterns and services begin to change or bend to the needs and demands of a transient population which attains critical mass to actually cause these changes, and infrastructure ominously breaches the limits it was designed for faster than can be replaced or enhanced. When the local citizen finds no seat on his own city's trams or buses ( as we saw several times across Europe). Or when the local restaurants change menus to accommodate global tastes rather than offer local cuisine, when standardization rather than uniqueness becomes rampant. 

I don't come from a city or nation which suffers from any sort of over tourism, but we actually suffer from "over- population" which , if you think of it, is the same issue as over tourism- and you cant even ban airlines or cruise ships- its there, permanently, every time, every day.  In fact, Indians I believe generally visit the "first world" to experience less crowding, clean air, weather, superb infrastructure and cleanliness! 

While over tourism and over crowding are two sides of the same coin, the approaches and solutions have to be very different.  

Discussing over tourism solutions this time : 

1. Marketing can be used to phase out visits. Not always possible because of weather and vacations. 

2. Entry barriers - visa issuances can be controlled. Easiest method, but could have political and economic repercussions. 

3. Cost barriers- simply make it more expensive, which would filter out the marginal, low and budget categories, but that could be seen as unfriendly, and discriminatory (which it could well be). Cost barriers could be higher taxes, expensive room rates, differential public transport and entrance fees (which does create resentment). It could well be the entrance fees like Venice tried ( But travelers simply adjust mentally to a higher cost plane and kept coming). 

4. Open new areas : could spread the numbers across the land, but presumably, could get overwhelmed as well - necessitating newer areas every few years. Not easy. 

5. Other destinations develop- this could well cause diversion of tourism permanently and cause economic damage. This has started in Vietnam and Cambodia, which have started taking in more Indians diverting from Thailand and Singapore. (When destinations within India develop, that will also divert some tourism- but the sheer numbers of Indians means this is not a worry for Europe, USA , Singapore or UAE and others anytime soon!) 

Just some ideas but no quick solutions. As the massive middle classes of India , China and Asia in general prosper, they will travel. Its a human need. But the numbers can, and will, overwhelm. Destinations need to deal with it. 

I intend to analyze interconnected, historical and economic issues related to tourism and travel going ahead- watch this space. 

Baggage left behind!

We landed, but one of our main bags didn’t- apparently it was still in Singapore and wouldn’t arrive in Siem Reap until the next day. This was a little odd as there was an evening flight as well from Singapore. But what was bemusing was the speed and readiness of the lost / delayed baggage counter. The moment we reached the counter, the person handed us a laminated paper with pictures of bags and sizes and once we identified the bag size from the pictures, the person filled in the forms himself and within 15 minutes handed us US$100 as compensation for the late arrival of the bag. The next morning, the bag was delivered to our hotel. All smooth and without any follow-up from our side. That’s one advantage perhaps of a world class airline like Singapore Airlines.

Apparently, this is a well-known occurrence, and everyone’s used to it! Or maybe we were just lucky as there wasn’t much traffic. Or maybe the person was just very efficient. Either way, while a bit inconvenient, we weren’t complaining. The main bags with the food came with us!

And as a happy consequence of lack of clothes, we had to shop – and found a store called Ten11 (on Sivutha Boulevard- recommended by our Tuktuk driver+ guide Bannu), with some good designs, quality and value for money, courtesy Singapore Airlines US$100! What we bought was very useful when we landed in Hanoi on December 25.