Travel Website Benchmarking Report Essays - Expedia, Inc.

Travel Website Benchmarking Report Benchmarking Report: Travel and Hospitality Website February 20, 2001 Table of Contents A. Report Purpose.. 2 B. Executive Summary 1. Methodology 3 2. Findings 4 3. Advice.. 5 C. Comparisons 1. Usefulness Defined.. 7 2. Scoring Matrix. 8 3. Description of Attributes. 9 4. Weighting Scheme 11 5. Brief Description of Benchmarked Sites.. 12 6. Design Insights. 14 A. Report Purpose The purpose of this report is to gain a better understanding of what comprises a well thought out travel and hospitality website. This benchmarking report will analyze four popular travel and hospitality websites based on certain evaluative attributes. These attributes will then be ranked in a manner explained further in the methodologies section (B1). Through analysis of the four websites chosen and our respective findings, various design insights (C6) will come to the forefront as more useful or less useful than others. The term usefulness will be elaborated on in section C1. This research will allow us, in building a travel and hospitality website, to employ the most useful designs and realize what attributes on which to focus. In the executive summary section we will offer advice (B3), having surveyed the leading sites as to what could be improved upon or developed further to enhance the overall experience at each particular website. Executive Summary B1. Methodology The following section titled methodolosy will describe our approach to the benchmarking report including our testing criteria. The task presented to us was to benchmark travel related web sites. There were several possibilities in terms of which sites to use. Our group chose to benchmark the four most visited travel web sites: Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, Lowestfare.com, and Cheaptickets.com (source: Consumer Reports). Consumers have visited these four web sites the most, therefore they must have provided value for their consumer. We felt it would be beneficial for our group to benchmark them, in order to gain insight on how our web site will ultimately look, and what functions it will provide. After we chose which travel web sites to benchmark, the next step was to choose the attributes upon which the comparisons would be made. We chose seven attributes, which we felt encompassed what the typical consumer would look for in a travel web site. They were: 1) Ease of Use/Usability/Navigability/Site Map 2) Info Content/Pricing Info/Content/Updates 3) Appearance/Layout/Structure/Consistency/Graphics 4) Site Speed/Download Time/Reliability 5) Buying Online/Simplicity of Purchase/Member 6) Site Support/Help Desk 7) Products/Selection/Ability to Compare Each attribute has multiple descriptors because it is of our opinion that they are closely related. The Description of Attributes Measured section (C3) will describe these attributes in further detail. Each of the attributes was applied to the four web sites, and was rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the best. Furthermore, each of the attributes was weighted, these weights can be found in the Weighting Scheme section (C4). Once all the information was gathered, conclusions were drawn on the quality of four web sites. Finally, drawing on those conclusions, advice was given to the consumer on the web sites, so they can make a more informed decision when choosing which of the top travel web sites they should use. These can be found in the Findings and Advice sections, which immediately follow. B2. Findings The goal of this Findings section is to set forth the information we gathered regarding each website after following our research methodologies. In surveying each of the aforementioned websites, many commonalities as well as differences were found. The areas the Findings are grouped into include: ? Overall format/Ease of use ? Relevant links presented ? Speed of site/links Format Overall, the sites were easy to use and for the most part uncluttered. The one exception to this was in Travelocity. This site, while informative, did result in sensory overload when viewed. Expedia, Lowestfare and Cheaptickets all seemed to have just about the right amount of information/links available to make sure the customer could quickly find what they needed without being overwhelmed. The forms to enter data for the desired trips/packages were quite easy to use and pull-down menus were generally available to speed transactions. Links Available In this area, all of the sites excelled. Links for tours, cruises, contests, hotels, car rentals and just about every other vacation/business trip related good could be found on the sites. A person should have no trouble selecting which of these fits their needs. Expedia and