Ms. Frank

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

Hotel Websites: When Standing Still Means Going Backward

By Tema Frank, President, Web Mystery Shoppers International Inc.

The percentage of people who have researched hotels online is continuing to increase. So are the numbers of those who have actually made hotel reservations online, with 77% of approximately 600 US-based Internet users in a recent study saying they had done so. This means that not only are your prospective customers likely to find you and book with you online, they are very likely to have visited competitors' sites and have a "standard" in mind to which they are comparing you.

Overall, hotel and online travel agency sites have improved since 2003. The percentage of shoppers getting error messages on hotel booking sites has dropped from 15% to 13%. The error messages are easier to understand and the errors are easier to fix. More sites have moved to plain English error messages, and have eliminated some of the more common errors. For example, more sites will now accept a phone number entered in varying formats, such as with or without brackets around the area code. After all, why make your users go through hoops to figure out which format they need to use when simple programming can make your system accept it either way?

Yet despite such improvement, the study of 23 hotel and travel agency web sites saw a significant drop in the number of shoppers who were willing to continue beyond the sites' home pages (from 93% in 2003 to 89%). There were also fewer respondents willing to recommend the sites they visited to friends (down from 4.32 out of 5.0 in 2003 to 4.10).

Even more troubling was that some of the sites taking the biggest plunge in consumer satisfaction had not changed much during the two years. One site appears to have been exactly the same except for a different promotion. Yet it went from being the second most highly ranked site in terms of overall experience in 2003 to one of the lowest ranked sites today. What happened?

In that particular case, one obvious difference in the site was the promotion that the company was running at the time of the second study. Perhaps it simply didn't appeal to the site visitors. The promotion in 2003 was a chance to win a portable DVD player. This year's promotion showed a grey-haired couple wearing leis and drinking a cocktail out of a pineapple (promoting a chance to win trip to Hawaii). It seems likely that these promotions would appeal to a different segment of the market, and it is possible that the earlier one appealed more to mainstream Internet users than the more recent one.

Surprisingly, though, the comments made by the people testing this company's site did not focus on the new promotion. While a few did comment on disliking the picture on the home page, most of the comments made had to do with the navigation and other more structural concerns. For example:

"I would not automatically check the boxes for being a [Rewards Club] Member, or receiving [Hotel X] e-mails. I do not appreciate having a business decide that they are going to send me information that I do not need." As a result, this person later went on to comment, "I don't think this organization will respect my privacy by checking the box to automatically enroll me in [Rewards Club]. It is possible that [Rewards Club] will sell my information to someone else."

This is a clear example of how consumer expectations have changed. Two years ago, people were far less aware of and concerned about privacy and security on web sites. What concerns they had were usually focused on fears of making credit card payments online, not on e-mail. And since most people were not bombarded by nearly as much e-mail as they are today, they were less likely to object to being added to a list that might result in e-mail.

What other sorts of changed expectations may be hurting your chances of increasing web-generated bookings?

• Pictures. People now expect pictures of hotel rooms and facilities. They are reluctant to book without seeing the room first. But you have to be sure to provide these pictures in a way that does not slow down your page loading speeds. Make sure your techies are using image compression.

• Professionalism. Your home page (and all the other pages) must look professional. They must make it clear, right from the start, that this is a hotel site, run by experienced, well-organized people. This applies to both your images and what you say. Cute pictures that do not relate to your hotel detract. As one shopper put it, commenting on a site that did not meet industry appearance standards, "The information is very general which would make me unsure that it is a real company. It looks like something a person would make at home rather than a professional web site."

• Forget "stickiness". Today's consumers want speed and efficiency. This means you have to have a clear focus to each page, so they are not getting confused by multiple offers and unclear links to follow. Even though average page loading speeds are perceived to have improved in the past two years, the ability to find what shoppers were looking for quickly and efficiently is worse than two years ago. "Stickiness" is an outdated concept. People don't want to spend more time than they have to at hotel sites. They have a goal to accomplish. Help them do so quickly and easily.

• Balanced page lengths. In studies a few years ago, many consumers complained about having to fill out online forms that were too long. Long forms looked intimidating, so people were reluctant to tackle them. As a result, many companies swung too far in the opposite direction, with forms split into many pages with only one or two questions on each. While this looks less daunting at first, waiting for each new page to download gets annoying quickly, especially for the half the population that is still using dial-up connections. Be sure to only ask for information that you really need, and strike a balance on page length. And always let people know how much more they have to do in order to complete the process.

• Clear pricing. Most of the non-hotel competitors for online bookings (e.g. agency sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz) now give shoppers a good idea of what their total costs will be, including taxes. Consumers expect the same of your hotel site, and resent hidden fees and taxes. Unclear pricing information makes them hesitant to trust your other claims.

• Fast turn-around. People now expect instant confirmations of bookings and other correspondence. If they send you an e-mail and do not get a confirmation immediately and a full answer by the next day, they will question your reliability. Make sure your back-end systems are such that all e-mails do get answered thoroughly and quickly. And provide a toll-free number for them to call if they still have any questions.

So how do you know when it is time to update your site? The most obvious indication is if your online conversion rate - the percentage of site visitors actually booking with you -- is dropping. If you are not measuring your conversion rates, you should be.

Rather than waiting until damage is already being done (as seen by a dropping conversion rate) you may wish to run quarterly, or at least semi-annual, assessments of how your site compares to your major competitors' sites. Keep screen shots of what key pages of each site looked like at the time of each test, so you can see major changes at a glance. Then get some people (preferably people who do not know your site or business very well) to actually try to use your site and those of your key competitors. Find out what they like better about the other sites. What they like (and dislike) about your site. This may seem like a lot of work, but given the steadily increasing trend towards online research and booking of hotel stays, you cannot afford to let your web site slip.

Tema Frank is president of Web Mystery Shoppers International Inc. Her company's proprietary website assessment uses an ever-changing panel of some 50,000 people testing web sites from their own computers and providing detailed feedback. Her company has produced research insights that have been valued by companies such as Expedia, Sabre Holdings (Travelocity), Travelweb, OctopusTravel, and many others. She serves on the research committee of the Web Analytics Association and on the Editorial Board of User Experience magazine. Ms. Frank can be contacted at 780-444-5645 or tema@webmysteryshoppers.com Extended Bio...

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