this is one more report, and by a respected firm like JD Power that shows Customer Satisfaction with Indy Travel Sites Declines. It's fairly obvious by now, that the OTA have their work cutout for them if they want to keep their growth rates up and claim back market share lost to supplier sites.
It's no longer enough to just throw up a lot of product on their websites at the cheapest price. Increasingly web savvy customers expect more than that. Usability seems to be required and I assume relevancy in terms of what's shown based on preference input.
The more complex the travel plan gets, the more customers expect more than just a huge listing of pre-packaged vacations but the tools to self-design and assemble their dream vacation. It seems that Travelocity has caught on to that by putting more emphasis on the Dream - Learn - Plan aspect of leisure travel rather than the "from - to" model that is still prevalent.
This study is just one more indicator that the bar is now higher and the low hanging fruit in easy online travel component sale has been picked. It's on to web 3.0 tool development!
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