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Travelguru.com Launches New User Interface For Hotel Search in India
(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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Travelguru, India’s one of the largest hotel networks, has launched a new user interface on its website to enhance users’ overall hotel booking experience. After acquiring Desiya.com in December 2007, the level of aggregation of data regarding the hotels in the country has considerably increased for the travel portal.
While speaking about the latest development, Hari V Krishnan, Vice President (Product & Marketing) of Travelguru, said, “A hotel user requires a lot of relevant data to make their booking decision. Our new Hotels user interface helps the user access multiple hotel details within the same earch results page, thus reducing navigation time. This in turn facilitates better user experience and allows the user to make quicker, more informed decisions.”
Some of the new features that got introduced in the interface are :
Web 2.0 Technology -
The users of the Travelguru portal can rate each and every hotels and can also submit reviews for the benefit of others.
Use of Google Maps -
This one is my favorite. You can also view the hotels on Google Maps. This will give you a clear idea of the location and also travel directions to wherever to need to go.
DHTML Layering -
Another smart use of technology is DHTML layering which in one instance allows the user to view detailed user reviews and ratings of Hotels without deviating from the search results page.
Tabbed Browsing -
This feature has enabled users to check out details about the hotel, like photos of the rooms, services available etc, without leaving the browser window. This helps in improving the navigatibility of the web site.
Missing Features :
A very important feature that was missing was the ability of searching for hotels according to the room rents. Moreover, when I had searched for a hotel to stay in, for 3 months at a stretch, I got only one hotel on the results page. Is it that most hotels do not allow patrons for a long time, at a stretch?
Despite everything, I feel Travelguru has come a long way in improving user experience on its portal. Kudos to them.
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They should look at expedia and look to emulate it.
Exepedia works yea.. but no point in every travel site being the same right? I think it’s a good move on their part.. actions lead to innovation.. so hopefully after a sometime they can bring value addition centric to the indian customer and something that perhaps is better than what Exepedia has on offer … both in terms of usability and service
yea - for sure it has to be culturally tuned. But my point was more related to the fact that technology platforms remain more or less standard. Their UI and use experience and use benefit can be modified.
Ya, the new interface lloks cool. But most of the new features are already there on the existing sites. Eg. things like map, reviews, room pics, videos etc have been there on makemytrip for sometime now. also the amount of details available are is far higher.
The puzzle which most of OTAs are not able to crack is how to sell hotels online. No matter what the OTA claims, the hotel bookings ahve still not taken off online. I guess changing customer behavior on hotels does not seem that easy.