Which hotel websites do you find most engaging?
A new Econsultancy report that looks into the digital performance of eight of the world´s best hotel brands has crowned Marriott as the best hotel in terms of brand awareness and onsite effectiveness.
American hospitality brand Marriott achieved a score of 83%, followed by Hilton at 81% and Accor at 78%. The average score that the surveyed hotels recorded was 64%, Econsultancy said.
Results were based on the hotels´ performances in various elements, including all stages of the purchase journey, mobile and personalisation. In the research stage of the purchase journey, Marriott came first with a score of 89%. Its homepage was very well designed and included top offers and an easy-to-spot customer support number. The site offered easy navigation but lacked a general search field, which was replaced by a search tool that helped users find a hotel.
In the second stage of the journey, where consumers selected a hotel, Marriott still outperformed its competitors. Its website provided a predictive search function that improved user experience, while its product pages were all well-structured and easy to navigate.
However, when it came to the last stage of the purchase journey – the payment process – Hilton Hotels came top with a score of 89%, followed by Accor (82%) and Marriott (81%). The best features included price details, information about rooms and a good summary page, Econsultancy explained. In general, all hotels presented users with a decent summary page, with the exception of Holiday Inn, which only gave users an estimated price.
By Ben Hollom