Gómez Performance Index For Hotels: October 15 - November 15, 2004

The Gómez Performance Index (GPI) for Hotels benchmarks end-to-end application response time and availability of leading hotel and third-party travel services Web sites executing a multi-step transaction -- the ubiquitous hotel room search. The steps measured consist of navigating to the homepage; initiating a search query; and gathering room details and rate information.

To read the complete methodology for the Hotels GPI, please click here.

Data Analysis

Expedia retained top rank for the fourth consecutive Gómez Performance Index (GPI) for Hotels. Response times across all benchmarked online travel sites averaged 9.32 seconds, while transactional success rate decreased to 98.11% during the period.

Response Time

Despite posting a 0.27 second increase in response time from the previous period, Expedia held top rank in this Hotels GPI benchmark category. Best Western and Starwood reported response time improvements of more than 3 seconds each, helping the benchmark average decrease by 0.46 seconds. Overall, seven of the ten participating firms out-performed the benchmark average.

Success Rate

Average success rate fell 0.55% from the average posted during the previous publishing period. A noticeable decrease in availability can be seen across many of the benchmarked sites, indicating the impact increased holiday season travel planning is having on transactional success rates. Still, seven of ten services posted success rates greater than 98%, suggesting a high level of consistency across the online hospitality services industry.

Gomez is the leading supplier of enterprise solutions that help companies achieve and maintain the peak performance of their mission-critical Internet applications. Using Gomez products and services, enterprises reach performance excellence and meet or surpass their business goals. Founded in 1997, Gomez provides performance measurement, benchmarking and competitive insight to Global 1000 companies across all industry segments, including financial services, e-commerce, information technology and travel.

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Gómez helps companies understand the impact of performance as well as usability and functionality relative to the online customer experience. The site elements we benchmark are instrumental in shaping overall customer satisfaction, and drive customers' willingness to utilize the online channel. Gómez follows the travel, retail and financial services industries, measuring the business effectiveness of Internet offerings.