Last week, I read about Booking.com partnering with DogPack and got immediately curious.
I had no idea what DogPack was, so I dug in.
They’re self-described as the world’s largest social platform for dog owners, from Montreal (Canada).
They’ve built a super-app with a huge ambition: communities, merch, marketplace, dog park finder, vet clinics, walking, sitting, insurance, lost & found (which is amazing, but I would have loved to find a shelter directory as well) and, of course, pet travel.
Over 2 million users. The vision is clear.
As someone who knows the Nordic and Spanish pet markets well, I checked their data, and it’s pretty poor, missing major things.
The app seems built for North America, and it shows.
But let’s go for the juicy part.
The strategy behind that partnership:
→ Booking embedded itself inside the pet community
→ DogPack moved from a discovery platform to a full travel companion
So I tested it. As someone who searches for pet friendly hotels every summer, I wanted to see if this actually works.
Some drums after…
It doesn’t.
Not yet.
The integration shows accommodations that aren’t pet friendly. PLOF!
Why on Earth would I be in a pet parent community seeing hotels that aren’t pet friendly? They shouldn’t even appear.
But also, some of the information doesn’t seem updated.
Frustrating.
As an example of what I mean. A hotel I know is pet friendly showed up as not. And once I find something and click through, I land on the same old Booking.com page with the usual message:
“Pets allowed on request, charges may apply”
An ambiguity I’ve been dealing with for years.
Nothing changed on the UX side from Booking.com
No improved filters. No clearer pet policies. No real signal of trust.
But here is the biggest miss I see for them:
→ There are already competitors using AI to maintain updated, accurate pet friendly data in real time. If I still have to Google and call to confirm, I’m not coming back to the app.
It reminds me a bit of Yelp in Europe, a great idea, with data you cannot rely on.
For pet brands, here’s what I take from this partnership:
The pet travel market is heading towards $5.3B by 2034.
The brands and platforms winning that space aren’t the loudest ones, or the ones that create strong communities where dog owners already spend their time.
The winning brands, with or without strong partnerships, are solving the real challenges pet parents still face today.
With design thinking as their main North star 🧡
LinkedIn original post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/angels-bosch
