Why the website you use to book influences your holiday choice

Online holiday booking can be convenient and efficient, but poor website designs can irritate customers and give them a bad impression of a destination - before they have even departed.

Holiday Which? magazine say that common vexations include only being able to search for holidays after having registered using a long application form, with 45 per cent complaining that they can only use set dates to search within - despite not having booked annual leave and still being able to be flexible.

Over a third of people find that "extras" are added to their choices as standard - and you have to delete them or risk being charged. The telephone 'helpline' often operates at a premium rate charge. Another three in ten people say that insufficient information is given and so it is difficult to make an informed choice.

Justin Cooke, managing director of Fortune Cookie (a web design firm), said: "Over the last six months we have seen a few things we have been impressed with.

"In travel, you find that people aren’t trying to make a booking, they are trying to find the right holiday. The website is the start of the holiday experience – it's about asking you where you want to go, how much you want to spend and what it is you are looking for. There are some really great websites that are starting to do that now. There are sites that allow you to customise and filter your search results."

Thompson Holidays found that a testing package which tracked why bookings were abandoned helped their website designers to correct faults in the re-launch of the thompson.co.uk site last year.

14/05/2008 17:50:31