Travolution Summit 09 - User Experience

Joel from Frommer's Unlimited who sold his company Whatsonwhen to the American publisher is on stage

The online travel cycle

Dream ==> Plan ==> Go and Share

Deciding where to go, online research is clear winner.
Factors in deciding where to go, Price and Activities are the most important.
What content matters when planning, Pictures of accomodation/facilities, a written description of the destination and the destination map are a must have.

Online travel agents should be able to categorize hotels based on what consumers are searching in search engines (boutique hotels, bed and breakfast, seaside hotels..) instead of coming back with a dull display of all their hotels available in a destination.
Content can drive relevant traffic and get picked by Google and other search engines.
Consumers bad experience online comes when they don't find enough pictures for example (among other reasons).

I will post link of the study later on.

Comments

[NÃO SOMOS APENAS ROSTINHOS BONITOS]

We did a post about crazy hotels and we want to show you!
We are a brasilian blog!
Tks!

[Guy Cras]

Most important factor is the location off course. Very few hotels are chosen for the hotel itself, most for the destination. People choose the George5 because they want to visit Paris, they dont visit Paris to sleep in the George5.

Price is most certainly not a topic, its the idea people have about your category. People looking for a budget hotel will not look at the offers of the George5, people will suppose that "Ibis" offers a better value than the competition, even if Ibis does not at all.
On each site (eg booking) it is hard to compare, some rates are all included, for others, there is no taxes, or breakfast, or parking ticket, ....

If activities are an important issue, on line bookers still have a hard job. Who can make the difference between a hotel with sauna-corner or a wellness hotel ?
Disappointed when guests finally arrive. Main reason is that the information is not (well) read at all.
How can you inform the on line readers when they dont read, and will they be better informed when you publish loads of information ?

[Rob Barham]

"Online travel agents should be able to categorize hotels based on what consumers are searching in search engines (boutique hotels, bed and breakfast, seaside hotels..) instead of coming back with a dull display of all their hotels available in a destination."

I have recently seen Expedia / Hotels.com produce top ten lists - best for families, best surfing destination. I suppose this is based on addressing the above. What type of sites so you think will do best though Guillaume ? niche sites e.g. surfinghotels or the big players with decent content on multiple categories ?