Increasing consumer control stresses on importance of lower site abandonment

Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2007: By EFT CorrespondentSite performance and site scalability continue to be core issues for growing travel content providers as they focus on increasing their online bookings and building customer loyalty.

Published: 04 Jun 2007

Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2007: By EFT Correspondent

Site performance and site scalability continue to be core issues for growing travel content providers as they focus on increasing their online bookings and building customer loyalty.

According to a study by Jupiter research, online consumers will wait no more than four seconds for a web page to load in a browser – if it takes longer than four seconds, 33 percent will abandon and go a competing site.

“With the consumer in control, travel content providers need to make the user experience as fast and reliable as possible, leading to increased sales through lower site abandonment,” says Pedro Santos, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Akamai.

Santos, who attended the recently held EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2007 conference in London, acknowledged that consumers are looking for sites with content they can trust as independent sources.

Considering the increasing popularity of user-generated content and the latest trends in this arena as far as the UK is concerned, Santos said, “The trend in the UK is similar to what we are seeing in other countries which is consumers are continuing to look at independent sources of information for travel reviews. Travelers are increasingly turning to their peers as a valued research source and encourage travel marketers to join them in this dialogue.”

“The key to providing a rich online experience is keeping end user response times minimised,” he said.
“Companies that can ensure fast response times while adding the user-engaging experience of Rich Internet Applications will succeed in their RIA strategy.”

On how communicating via innovative social media sites might further engage the consumer and lead to increased conversion rates, Santos said, “Social media sites that can offer user-generated content capabilities along with a seamless end user experience will benefit most. Companies need to continue to focus on the fact that consumer is more and more in control over things like destination planning and price and can work on their technology and site experience based on this trend. This way they can differentiate in this competitive environment.”

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