HOTELMARKETING.COM

Travelocity improves hotel shopping experience

November 17, 2011 | Online Travel

According to Travelocity data, three out of every four travelers say that they have unanswered questions on the hotels they are interested in after doing initial online research. To help answer these questions, Travelocity has added new features highlighting user-generated content that allows its customers to connect to Travelocity, its hotel partners and fellow travelers.

“Travelocity has always focused on helping our customers make the best informed decisions,” said Carl Sparks, President and CEO, Travelocity Global. “Our new tools such as Questions and Traveler Stories are just a few examples of how Travelocity is guiding our customers so they can have the best trip possible.”

Questions

Questions, the first-of-its-kind in the online travel agency space, is a social forum for consumers to quickly and easily get additional information on a hotel before and after they book their trip. It allows travelers to submit questions about a hotel they are interested in and receive feedback from a fellow traveler, a Travelocity community manager and/or the hotel itself.

While still being tested with hotel partners, so far approximately 13,000 questions have been submitted. The feature is available on all Travelocity hotel information pages under the “Questions” tab, with question and answer content growing as travelers participate in the dialog. Travelers can also visit http://www.travelocity.com/hotelanswers.

“Still Deciding?” Module

Travelocity knows it can be hard for travelers to make the decision of what to book. In the top right hand corner of the hotel page of any destination you can now find a module that will connect to Facebook and ask a question about a hotel.

Traveler Stories

Consumers go beyond the traditional traveler review and share experiences in a journal format with pictures and videos.

Review Upgrades

Travelocity is improving its descriptions of hotels across the board so that customers can more directly compare rooms and facilities at different hotels. This includes more photos and videos for travelers to browse through.

Each of these features will also be included on Travelocity’s Canadian site, http://www.travelocity.ca In ad.dition, the site has enhanced its customer review process, making it more interactive and helping consumers help each other with the ability to respond to reviews and share their thoughts with their own social networks. Since launching the updates, Travelocity has more than doubled the number of customer reviews.

To develop these enhancements and help consumers make more confident hotel booking decisions, Travelocity worked with Bazaarvoice, a company that enables brands to create, listen to, understand, and act on authentic customer conversations.

“Travelocity has always been, and continues to be, one of our most innovative clients,” said Erin Mulligan Nelson, Bazaarvoice CMO. “We are proud to work with a company that shows such commitment to building their business around the voice of their customers.”

Read also "A new way to engage on Travelocity"

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