Why Hotel Websites Fail to Convert Online Visitors?

How can Hotels Boost
Online Sales?
Usability recommendations to improve ROI online
Thamil Selvan P
Usability Champion, ImpigerTechnologies
Richardson, Texas - 75081, USA
Call: 972-375-6301
marketing@impigertech.com
www.impigertech.com

CAUTION
This is not a comprehensive study.
A detailed usability study with 6-12 users is needed before making any conclusive recommendations.

Overview
We suggest improvements that can be made to the booking process on Hotel Websites as well as other usability improvements based on heuristic analysis

What is Usability?
The user interface is that part of a website or web app that the user interacts with and experiences directly
USABILITY is a quantitative and qualitative measurement of the design of a user interface
5
key areas in usability
Learnability
Efficiency
Memorability
Error tolerance
Satisfaction

Very Competitive Business
Hotel reservation is a competitive online business
UI design and usability is a chief differentiator
A user who enters a website must be able to understand the design immediately
No opportunities for training or user manuals

Understand Your Users
Redesign (or design) of any website should start with understanding existing and future users
Site Visit Goal: Understand why has the user chosen to visit the website on that particular occasion?

Site Visit Goal
Any number of reasons for a user to visit your site
We consider the 2 main goals which foster a purchase
Information gathering
Book a reservation

What is the Booking Process
How the user navigates through a series of sequential phases in an online hotel reservation.
Example
Enter required city and stay-date
Review options from available hotels, rooms, and rates
Select a suitable hotel, room, and rate
Enter guest and payment details
Confirm reservation

3
Online
Phases of Hotel Reservation
Y
They can complete these phases over a single or multiple visits

Multi-Room Reservation Combos
Majority of online reservations are for one room
There are less common combinations also which must be handled
one room for two adults
one room for one adult
two rooms, both with two adults (same room type/rate, same occupancy level)
two rooms, both with one adult (same room type/rate, same occupancy level)
two rooms, one with two adults, one with one adult (same room type/rate, different occupancy level)
two rooms with two adults in each, one a superior double, one a standard double (different room / rate type, same occupancy level)

Preliminary Heuristic Usability Study onMajor global hotels

Home page must emphasize the site's top high-priority tasks
Offer users a clear starting point for the main one to four tasks on home page.

Don’t show stuff that’s not clickable

Flash banners shouldn’t take too much of the first fold. Use it to push the top 4 things visitor came for

Flash banners shouldn’t take too much of the first fold. Use it to push the top 4 things visitor came for
Never use links that are not clear and look non clickable. (e.g. underlining links could help)

Navigation
Locate the primary navigation area in a highly noticeable place
Avoid putting any top horizontal navigation (primary or otherwise) above graphical treatments such as horizontal rules or banner areas

Users often ignore anything within or above a rectangular shape at the top of the screen

This behavior is called "banner blindness"

Tests prove users have difficulty in finding these links when placed in a bunch

This area was also not easily ‘seen’ because it was just above the European Getaways banner.
Tests prove users have difficulty in finding these links when placed in a bunch

The ‘coming soon’ item was placed apart from the rest of the cities

Seemed to imply that the hotels in other cities (Dubai, London, New York etc.) were not yet available. Few users were curious enough to click the links to find out

Users had difficulty understanding the context of the main navigation

Users had difficulty understanding the context of the main navigation
A study of the page analytics will provide clearer insight into actual online user behavior on this page

Build Trust
Adding credit card icons to the footer of a website is one of the easiest & fastest ways any business owner who accepts credit cards online can build trust.

Build Trust
The booking page that accepts credit card information should ideally be on a secure SSL page with brand icons that promotes trust.

Cumbersome Enquiry/ Booking Forms
Users are intimidated if forms are too big, featuring too many unnecessary questions and options
We must make each encounter with a form as smooth as possible

Don't make fields mandatory unless they truly are

Cut any questions that are not needed. the salutation (Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss…) can be made optional or removed

Cut any questions that are not needed. the salutation (Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss…) can be made optional or removed
Set the keyboard focus to the first field when the form is displayed. This saves a click

Form’s internationalization adherence
Since Jumeirah.com website’s audience is international, ensuring that international users can use your site is imperative
Site must accept Unicode input. Does it accept:
ØstfoldSchlüterC. F. MøllersAlléDK-1307 København KDenmark
PhoneNumbers: allow for international numbers containing a varying number of digits and a country code
Dates: Always spell out the name of the month. Using a notation like 10/8 is confusing -- is that October 8th or the 10th of August?

Support Multiple Visits
Studies show that 30 percent of all purchases take more than one day
This offers an opportunity to offer a customized experience for the returning site visitor.
Should be able to capture partial transactions and facilitate the purchase process over the course of several days

Site Search
As a rule of thumb, sites with more than about 200 pages should offer search
Usability studies show that more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior
Search-dominant users will usually go straight for the search button when they enter a website

We tested a simple search for hotels in London on one leading hotel site

The first search result to mention anything about ‘hotels in London’ was 9th on the list
1
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5
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9
10

The first search result to mention anything about ‘hotels in London’ was 9th on the list
1
2
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10
We want to show hotels in London for them to book, not news items.

Helpful Error Messages
Established wisdom holds that good error messages are polite, precise, and constructive
Ideally, the website should:
strive to make error messages clearly visible
reduce the work required to fix the problem
educate users along the way

It is also not clear where the problem could be

It is also not clear where the problem could be
We supplied incorrect credit card information. The message does not help the user fix the problem

Mobile–Readiness of the Hotel Website
A lot of useful features could be provided on a mobile site
One-click map and directions to the hotel (very useful if they are in a foreign city)
Easy-to-use mobile booking engine with easy access to your user profile, pre-populated with
Your contact information, credit card information and reward program number
Toll-free phone for additional information and reservations

Interested in converting web visitors
into enquiries and orders?
Talk to Us Today
Call: 972-375-6301
Email: marketing@impigertech.com
1130 East Arapaho, Suite 590,Richardson, Texas - 75081, USA.

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Why Hotel Websites Fail to Convert Online Visitors?

by Impiger Mobile Inc on May 26, 2011

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Why Hotel Websites Fail to Convert Online Visitors? — Presentation Transcript