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Most travel sites ‘atrocious’, says website expert
British Travel Trade Fair Special Report: The vast majority of travel websites are “atrocious” and lose business because they are impossible to navigate, a web specialist has claimed.
Craig Hanna, training director at consultancy firm E-Consultancy, accused 95% of websites of “behaving like the world’s worst high streets shops.”
Speaking at the British Travel Travel Fair in Birmingham, Hanna urged travel companies to make searching and booking as simple a process as possible.
“I believe 95% of websites are atrocious. There are exceptions, but think of the world’s worst high street shops where you don’t get any help and there is no service – that is how we are being treated by most websites,” said Hanna. “How is travel doing? Not very well.”
He said six out of ten travel sites have “amnesia” and don’t remember repeat visitors, while in a recent test, 52% of users who were told to book a flight and hotel were unable to do so.
“That’s an awful situation to be in,” he said.
Hanna added that websites are not just failing to convert sales but driving business directly to competitors.
“Figures show that 67% click off pages because they encounter difficulties and of those, 35% go direct to competitor sites.”
He told delegates at BTTF to “do the mum test”.
“Watch other people use your webite,” he said. “What’s an obvious to you, isn’t obvious to other people.
“I always see if my mum use it. That’s the test because if she can use, you should be ok.”
Report by Steve Jones
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