Expedia, Travelocity and Sheraton Deliver Best Online Customer Experience

Hotel sites like Sheraton are creating stronger brand experiences online, while online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity are converting more browsers into buyers. Despite the tremendous success of online travel, the lodging sector only performed average compared to Web norms for customer experience. Virtually all sites studied caused frustrations for customers. On average, study participants encountered problems every three minutes. Despite the differences between hotel and online agency sites, users encountered approximately the same number of frustrations on both types of sites.

Drawing from real user feedback and behaviors, Vividence ranked the top lodging industry Web sites on a series of factors that drive business success and customer satisfaction.

Top Overall Customer Experience

1. Expedia
2. Travelocity
3. Sheraton

"With the rapid growth and strong profits of the hotel aggregator sites, most industry observers believe these sites are more successful than the branded hotel sites. The Vividence data show that this conclusion may be an oversimplification," said Greg Jones, founder of WorldRes, a leading online hotel reservation network. "On one hand, it's clear that hoteliers need to improve their booking processes and price/value positioning to drive better conversion. On the other, the online agency sites need to learn a lesson or two about creating memorable and satisfying online experiences to gain more brand loyal customers. For both parties, the Vividence study promises to provide invaluable feedback on competitive 'best practices' and individual strengths and weaknesses."

"The online travel agencies hit the ball out of the park, taking the top positions in Overall Customer Experience as well as Conversion," said Jeff Greenberg, Vividence CEO. "However, every site revealed an Achilles heel. For instance, we identified six essential drivers that determine hotel Web site success. Expedia was one of the lowest-ranked sites on two of these drivers, but it ranked best overall. There is clearly room for even the most user friendly sites to improve."

Study participants said they'd be most likely to primarily or exclusively use Travelocity for booking lodging in the future. In addition, Travelocity scored high marks on innovation and ease of booking. "We've worked very hard to become the lodging site of choice. This Vividence research confirms our leadership position and reveals new opportunities for everyone in the industry," said Elizabeth Peaslee, Travelocity's VP of Customer Experience.

Of all sites evaluated, Sheraton posed the fewest problems, leading it to score well in Customer Satisfaction. "The depth and quantity of information in the Vividence CE Rankings provided an insight into our site performance that we did not previously understand," said Mark Koehler, VP of Interactive Marketing at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, owner, operator and franchiser of hotels and resorts including Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, and W Hotels. "We were pleased to see that users found Sheraton.com easy to use and hassle-free, but we're not going to stop there. We'll be using the future Vividence studies to take a regular pulse of our online customer and identify ways to make our sites even more useful to business and leisure travelers."

Study participants perceived Orbitz as the site with the best deals and promotions, and they appreciated the site's clear display of price options. "As the Vividence data demonstrated, many travelers rely on the Web to make informed travel purchases, so it's important to understand how customers perceive us in that area," said Eliah Kahn, Vice President of Customer Experience at Orbitz. "Vividence's research will help us to sustain a unique value proposition for the customer looking for a better travel booking experience."

Vividence will conduct the CE Rankings study every six months to identify longitudinal trends across the industry. "The hospitality industry was relatively slow to embrace online distribution, and the hotel companies have been playing catch-up ever since," said Jones. "Will the hotels learn how to better convert their visitors? Will online agencies develop lasting brand relationships with their users? We'll soon know which sites are embracing this study to attack their weaknesses and extend their competitive strengths."

About Vividence® Customer Experience Rankings(TM) - Vividence® Customer Experience Rankings(TM) is a syndicated research product that provides key information to understand target customers and competition on the Web. The rankings show which companies have developed Web sites that are fit for both short-term and long-term business success - and why. Vividence conducts the studies twice each year for several industries by gathering quantitative, qualitative, behavioral and attitudinal data as thousands of people attempt real-life tasks on Web sites of the top ten companies in an industry. Sites evaluated in the Lodging study include: Expedia, Hilton, Hotels.com, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Marriott, Orbitz, Sheraton, Travelocity and Wyndham.

About Vividence Corporation - Vividence is the leading provider of customer experience software and market research for the customer-driven enterprise. By capturing and interpreting the behavior, thoughts and attitudes of customers on the Web, Vividence custom and syndicated research yields business insights that improve profitability. More than 250 customers, including Citibank, Compaq, Dell, FedEx, Macy's, Microsoft, Pfizer, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, Wells Fargo and more than 150 of the Fortune 1000 use Vividence. For more information, please visit .