Friday, 03 July 2009 00:00

Price still drives consumers


Consumers are still primarily influenced by price when deciding on a holiday. However, they also have additional information needs that change at each stage of the booking cycle.

A global survey of more than 1,200 people, carried out for Frommer’s® Unlimited by web usage specialists eDigitalResearch, sheds light into what online travel consumers what from online travel sites before, during and after booking a holiday.

At the planning stage, images of the accommodation and a written description of the destination proved to be the most important factor in the process, closely followed by a information on activities and events and maps.  

At the time of booking, three pieces of information ranked as almost equally crucial, with airport and transportation information on a par with pictures of the room and a guide to the city or resort.   

Finally post-booking, a map of the destination was ranked as the most essential item of online content, with travel, weather, events and activities information and local dining also ranked as important.

Half of all travellers have struggled with poorly constructed, confusing and inaccurate websites that don’t provide them with sufficient images and information. The survey also showed that consumers were frustrated by out-of-date information, hidden fees and misleading descriptions, as well as technology-related issues such as slow downloads and broken links.

Despite the popular image of British being weather obsessed, when planning a holiday Americans found information about the weather to be more important that Europeans.

Joel Brandon Bravo general manager of Frommer’s Unlimited, said: “Every statistic we have seen this year shows that people are considering their travel plans for longer and booking closer to departure than ever before. So we feel this research will really help travel providers to understand exactly what content and tools they need to use to influence consumers in a very fast-changing market.”

Dominic Bean, head of business development for eDigitalResearch, which is launching an online travel benchmarking study this summer 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 full results are available to download at www.frommers.biz/contentsurvey
 
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