Research: Expert Interviews

Conducting Expert Interviews

As part of the research for this product, it was important to speak to experts within the Umrah industry in order to better understand what the process of bundling packages together consists of and what would constitute a successful Umrah trip. I spoke with leaders of Umrah industry in Europe, American and Asia to understand the different demographics and markets. My interviews also allowed me to get an insight into the type of clients that would book Umrah and their motives behind doing so. This allowed me to build empathy with users for both the B2B and B2C platforms.

In summary, from the interviews I found that:

• The Umrah market was moving to more individual client packages instead of group tours.

• In modernised countries where more people had access to the internet, tour operators were selling more individual packages.

• With the emergence of the likes of Sky Scanner and Booking.com pilgrims were preferring to book their own custom-made packages but would have to bundle the packages together from various different online platforms.

• Pilgrims would stumble at building their own packages at the point of attaining their own visas and would pay more to do so through an approved agent.

• Majority of agent time was spent on building or changing packages due to the small change in one item affected the rest of the package.

• Many Muslims still prefer going with a group due to not being sure if they are fulfilling their religious obligations correctly.

*Due to the proprietary nature of this product, only pre-approved examples of the work I completed have been published in this case study.