© Travel UCD Limited 2003. All Rights Reserved.
Hotel booking process design & usability
Travel UCD – February 2003
4 Introduction
This section of the report highlights the top-level factors relating to online reservation.
4.1 Why is the user on your website?
The design or redesign of any website should start with an analysis of existing and prospective
users. A key aspect to consider is why the user has chosen to visit the website on that occasion –
referred to as a
site visit goal.
This report considers users who are on a website for one of the following two reasons:
•
to gather information – looking for information such as hotel amenities, or the rates and
room availability on a known stay date etc. in order to eventually
make a reservation
(comparison shopping)
•
to make a reservation
There are other reasons for visiting a website – for example to make a customer service enquiry,
to cancel or modify a reservation, to check the level of a users loyalty card points – but this
report
addresses the user goals of information-gathering and
reservation-making.
4.2 The three phases to an online hotel reservation
A user will generally complete the
information-gathering goal before
making a reservation.
This isn’t always the case. It could
be that the user has already, either offline or via another
website, chosen the hotel they wish to stay at before making a reservation on your website.
There are other users, such as travel agency staff, who may visit
a website to gather hotel
information prior to making a reservation through an existing travel agency channel.
Apart from the two examples above, the two primary user goals that we are interested in can be
subdivided into the following phases and stages in an online reservation:
“
Information gathering”
Phase 1 - Search and evaluation
1.
Input stay requirements – including location (city) and proposed dates of stay
2.
Compare and evaluate results – user may view multiple hotel / room / rate
combinations
3.
Decide – user decides which hotel / room / rate combination meets their requirements
“Reservation making”
Phase 2 - Selection
4.
Select hotel, room and rate – the user selects the hotel / room / rate they wish to book
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