Half of all travellers have struggled with poorly constructed, confusing and inaccurate websites that don't provide them with sufficient information – according to a survey carried out by content experts Frommers's® Unlimited.
The global survey of more than 1,200 people – carried out for Frommer's Unlimited by web usage specialists eDigitalResearch – found that half the people surveyed had encountered confusing sites with information hard to find, insufficient pictures, insufficient information about the destination, hotel, cruise, airline or ferry company.
Four out of 10 people also reported finding inaccurate, or misleading information and not enough information about things to do. A third of travellers said they were frustrated by a lack of response to email enquiries and sites which weren't bookable online. One in 10 people said travel companies didn't tailor information to suit their needs and eight out of 10 said they only sometimes found the right information to suit their requirements. Just one in 10 said they did get the right tailored material when searching online.
Joel Brandon Bravo general manager of Frommer's Unlimited speaking at the PhoCusWright Travolution conference in London said, "Our survey has really highlighted the consumer experience problems which travel companies need to address in their websites. However we've also indentified what people most value when they were look online and the point at which that information was useful. Online research is considered a critically important planning tool, with more than 80% of people saying this is by far the most important tool for their research, compared to only 18% ranking travel agents most highly. We also found clear signals about the importance of providing online descriptions of the destination, images and maps because more than two thirds of respondents wanted this when planning and booking their trips."
The most important factors for people when deciding where to go were price (86%), activities to suit special interests (68%), length of trip (65%), weather (63%), food (58%), exchange rate (45%), beaches (38%), length of flight (37%), off-the-beaten track information (36%) child friendly details (20%), nightlife (19%) and carbon footprint (15%).
The Frommers Unlimited research found that eight out of 10 people wanted information online about destinations and practical guidance before they booked. But more than a third also wanted specific destination or more general holiday guidance at the time they were booking a hotel or flight.
When booking a holiday travellers say the following items are important or very important to them:
- online pictures of accommodation and facilities (76%),
- a written description of the destination (72%),
- a destination map (70%), destination activities and events (67%),
- weather information (65%),
- travel information such as time zone currency and visa requirements (60%),
- local dining information (51%),
- local sports and leisure information (33%),
- a video of accommodation (30%),
- video of the destination (25%) and
- details of family and children's activities (20%).
A third of people in the survey also said they wanted information after booking but before leaving on their trip. A further 15% said they even checked information online about their destination while they were on holiday.
Respondents showed they could be loyal to online travel providers – a third said they were loyal, 40% said they were sometimes loyal to particular brands and a quarter said they were not loyal. More than half of the people surveyed also said that a website with good content such as travel guides would influence them to book with that business. Around 45% said it would make no difference.
Dominic Bean, Head of Business Development for eDigitalResearch said, "We were concerned but not surprised by the dissatisfaction shown by travellers' experiences online. We regularly research and report on the consumer experience of using major high street retailers' websites and have seen online standards in general retailing transform in the past two years. It appears that travel has a long way to go to match these levels of online service."
* The global survey of 1,234 people was carried out for Frommers's® Unlimited by eDigitalResearch in April 2009. In the survey sample, 45% took holidays once or twice a year and a quarter took holidays between two to three times a year. Half the sample respondents were from the UK, a quarter from the USA and the remainder from Europe, Middle East, Australasia and Asia.
4Hoteliers is the "Official Daily News" of WIT09 www.webintravel.com - October 20-23, 2009 Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore 
