Hotai Group: Building a more complete travel experience app with Google Maps Platform

Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from Cecilia Lin, Product Manager, Hotai Group. In this post she shares how the team at Hotai Group created chicTrip, the one-stop travel planning app for users in Taiwan.

Travel is an experience best enjoyed with friends. So can a travel app not only show you routes and experiences but also help you feel more social? That was the concept behind chicTrip, our one-stop travel planning app for users in Taiwan.

Hotai Group has a long history as Taiwan’s largest automobile company, so transport is in our DNA. With the launch of chicTrip in 2023 we brought planning trips, managing itineraries, bookings, and navigation together into a fun, lifestyle experiences app that sees 1.2 million active users planning fun weekends and sharing trips together.

Creating a more social travel app

When we chose a mapping provider, Google Maps Platform was the clear choice for chicTrip. Mapping would be the bedrock of the experience and the Maps, Routes, and Places APIs work together perfectly to give us a cohesive and dynamic travel planning environment.

The accuracy and completeness of our route mapping across multi-modal transport options, along with real-time traffic updates, ensured the most important feature—getting to the place you want to go—was never going to fail us.

We used the Places API to make it simple to search for accommodation, dining options, and attractions complete with booking support for destinations, as well as taxis, travel insurance, and ticket purchasing. After upgrading to the latest Places API we also found improved search precision and richer visualization that has contributed to increased user engagement, while the API usage cost has dropped by 30%.

Now we’re tackling the functionalities that make chicTrip into a truly social environment. Customers are getting new features to collaborate on itineraries with friends. When people organize trips together one person is usually responsible for everything, but chicTrip will make it easier for everyone to work together on a single plan. Or if users want to find expertly crafted itineraries, we'll have options to discover when they’re searching for ideas.

Social video is also underway to offer users the chance to share their experiences for all chicTrip users to enjoy. By becoming more social, we see more opportunities for users to engage with chicTrip and with travel experiences all over Taiwan.

Achieving more with Master Concept

Working with development partner Master Concept accelerated our ability to take ideas and execute much faster than on our own. When challenges arose, they had the Google expertise we needed to find the right path forward and to show us new possibilities for the chicTrip app as new technologies launched.

The partnership continues as their team helps us keep chicTrip evolving to meet the needs of our growing user base. They model usage scenarios that help us understand where we need to go next and keep us excited about embracing new trends in travel technology.

Exploring immersive possibilities

As we continue to grow chicTrip in the Taiwanese market, we’re striving to enhance our overall service quality and make our app the best way to have a lot of fun — both when users plan their travels and when they’re on those trips they planned.

With the help of Master Concept, we’re actively exploring advanced mapping features, including immersive AR/VR experiences through ARCore technology. We’re excited to test what’s possible for travel experiences when you blend the physical and digital through AR. We’re also testing the ways AI can enhance travel content recommendations, perform sentiment analysis, and help us with content moderation.

Our long-term goal is to look toward global coverage, to deepen customer engagement, to keep our service at the forefront of travel technology, and to drive sustainable growth of Hotai Group.