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March
10,
2005
PRESS RELEASE
Consumers Now Prefer Booking Hotels Online Over All
Offline Options, Reports Keynote
- Price, Selection Give Online Travel Agencies
Edge Over Hotel Web Sites
- Expedia, Travelocity Provide
Best Online Customer Experience
- Keynote Study Examines
Consumer Experience at Leading Lodging Web Sites
SAN MATEO, Calif., — March 10, 2005 — Consumers
are increasingly likely to book lodging online, according
to a new study performed by Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”),
The Internet Performance Authority®. Keynote provides
the industry’s most comprehensive competitive
benchmarking of leading travel and lodging Web sites
through its syndicated research reports.
The Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings for
the Lodging Industry are based on research with 2,000
customers as they evaluated and interacted with 10
leading travel and lodging Web sites. In addition to
traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary
research technology collects detailed qualitative and
behavioral data as customers perform tasks at each
site.
The Expedia, Hilton, Hotels.com, Hyatt, Lodging.com,
Marriott, Orbitz, Sheraton, Travelocity, and Wyndham
Web sites were evaluated as part of this competitive
benchmarking study.
Consumers Increasingly Likely to Book Lodging Online
[vs. Phone]
The Keynote study revealed steady growth in the number
of consumers stating they use the Internet to book
lodging accommodations as compared to those using other
methods, such as calling hotel reservation lines or
calling a travel agent. More than two-thirds (67%)
of consumers participating in the study reported that
they are likely to book on a hotel Web site as compared
to just 57% who are open to using a phone reservation
system. Just 16% report a willingness to use a travel
agent.
“We’ve seen a continual increase in consumer
comfort and use of the Internet for booking travel
arrangements, but this is the first time we have seen
all the online options for booking beating the offline
options,” said Dr. Bonny Brown, director of research
and public services for Keynote. “We have come
to a point where consumers with Internet access are
now more likely to book online as compared to using
the phone.”
In 2003, Keynote research showed consumers as increasingly
comfortable with phone reservation systems, with nearly
two-thirds (63%) reporting that as a typical method
for booking, as compared to just 50% reporting willingness
to use an online agency site and 59% willing to use
a hotel Web site. In January 2004, Keynote research
revealed that consumers preferred certain hotel sites
to phone methods for booking, but preferred phone service
over booking on third-party or agency sites. In its
latest study, Keynote’s annual benchmarking revealed
that consumers now prefer all online booking methods
over offline alternatives.
Price Still Paramount, Online Agencies Capitalize
on Advantage
Despite the shift in preferred channels, price is still
paramount to consumers booking online, with 61% of
consumers reporting this as an important consideration.
In fact, the top frustration for consumers is also
price-related, with one-in-four (24%) consumers complaining
that they did not get the best price when booking on
a specific site. Hotel and accommodation selection
was a consideration of 33% of consumers booking online
and past experience with a hotel was a consideration
of 29%.
“Online agencies typically perform the best
in demonstrating value and selection to the consumer
and thus perform the best in terms of converting browsers
into buyers,” said Dr. Brown. “Hotel sites
that do provide strong search and comparison tools
perform significantly better than hotel sites as a
whole, and can perform on par with online agency sites.”
The ability to compare prices was also reported as
a critical factor by 46% of consumers.
Expedia Leads, But Travelocity and Orbitz Make Big
Gains
In fact, all the online travel agencies studied scored
significantly better than any hotel site, aside from
Marriott, in customer experience and customer conversion.
Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz ranked as the best
sites in the Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings,
an overall measure of online customer experience based
on evaluation of more than 250 metrics. Online agency
sites also topped the Keynote Conversion Impact Index,
which gauges the overall likelihood of a visitor to
book on a site or return to a site in the future.
Keynote Customer
Experience Rankings |
Keynote Conversion Impact Index Rankings |
1. |
Expedia |
1. |
Expedia |
2. |
Travelocity |
2. |
Travelocity |
3. |
Orbitz |
3. |
Hotels.com |
Although Expedia continues to lead the Keynote CE
Rankings, Travelocity and Orbitz have made significant
gains in their customer experience and conversion performance
over the past year in which Keynote benchmarked lodging
industry sites. During this latest study, more than
68% of consumers visiting Travelocity said they would
likely book lodging on the site in the future as compared
to 62% stating that in previous studies. More than
72% of Orbitz visitors expressed intent to book on
the site in the future, as compared to 62% in the previous
study.
Travelocity made gains with consumers in the study
in large part because of its improved customer support
and ease of use, and Orbitz made significant gains
in ease of booking and price satisfaction. Expedia
performed strongly across all leading drivers of customer
satisfaction, notably in ease of booking, customer
support and price satisfaction.
The entire study, Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings for the Lodging Industry, is a large-scale
competitive benchmarking study examining overall industry
trends and providing analysis of specific sites. The
full report includes hundreds of additional data points,
a detailed analysis of the findings, and recommendations
for improving site performance. For further information
about the full report, visit http://www.keynote.com/syndicated.html.
Keynote Customer Experience Research
Keynote is the leading provider of customer experience
research services, offering both syndicated and custom
research examining consumer attitudes and behavior
on the Web. Keynote’s research provides critical
business insight into online customer experiences,
industry trends and competitive Web strategies for
a variety of vertical industries. In addition to
traditional opinion data, Keynote’s proprietary
research technology and access to a panel of 160,000+
consumers allows for the collection of detailed qualitative
and behavioral data that inform its reports.
Keynote’s syndicated research includes two distinct
types of reports: the Keynote Customer Experience (CE)
Rankings, which provide competitive benchmarking and
rankings of the leading Web sites in a specific industry;
and Open Web Research (OWR), which takes a broader
look at the customer’s experience across the
entire Web when performing specific tasks, such as
booking business travel.
Keynote CE (CE) Rankings are available for a number
of industries including the retail, banking and credit
card industries, as well as several travel verticals,
including the airline, cruise and rental car industries.
The Keynote CE Rankings are the successor to the Vividence
CE Rankings following Keynote’s acquisition of
Vividence in September 2004.
To learn more about Keynote’s syndicated research
offerings and for a list of the various vertical industry
reports that are available, visit: http://www.keynote.com/solutions/cem_syndicated_research.html.
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”),
The Internet Performance Authority®, is the worldwide
leader in e-business performance management services.
Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 16,000 individual
subscribers rely on Keynote’s growing range of
measurement and monitoring, service level and customer
experience management services to improve e-business
performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction
and increasing profitability.
Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority
due to the company’s global infrastructure of
over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities
worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over
40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent
media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data
and analysis, the company’s market-leading Web
performance indices for vertical markets and leading
customer research that provides critical business insight
into online customer experiences, industry trends and
competitive Web strategies.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo,
California and can be reached at www.keynote.com or
by phone in the U.S. at (650) 403-2400.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective
are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc.
Other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
©
2005 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Editorial Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz, Keynote Systems, (650) 403-3305,
dberkowitz@keynote.com
Chenoa Taitt, Lippert Heilshorn & Associates, (212)
838-3777, ctaitt@lhai.com
Michael Hopkins, Lippert Heilshorn & Associates,
(212) 838-3777, mhopkins@lhai.com
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