Business Travelers Frequent Online Travel Agencies, But Prefer Airline and Lodging Web Sites, According to Keynote Study.SAN MATEO San Mateo (săn mətā`ō), city (1990 pop. 85,486), San Mateo co., W Calif., on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1894. It is a commercial and retail center with some high-technology manufacturing. San Mateo, Spanish for St. , Calif. -- Keynote keynote /key·note/ (ke´not) in homeopathy, the characteristic property of a drug that indicates its use in treating a similar symptom of disease. Study is First to Examine Online Research and Booking Habits of Business Travelers Although business travelers at companies with unmanaged or lightly managed travel policies pay more frequent visits to online travel agencies, they prefer the online experience provided by airline and lodging Lodging or holiday accommodation is a type of accommodation. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging mainly for sleeping. Other purposes are safety, shelter from cold and rain, having a place to store luggage and being able to take a Web sites, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a new study. The syndicated research study released by Keynote Systems Keynote Systems, Inc. provides measurement and monitoring, service level and customer experience management services to customers to improve e-business performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and increasing profitability. (Nasdaq:KEYN KEYN is a radio station operating in Wichita, Kansas. The station runs a Oldies music format. History KEYN signed on the air in 1968 as a Top 40 station, in the late 80's the station started calling itself "Power 104" and had the exact same logo as KPWR "Power 106" in Los ), The Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the Performance Authority(R), is the first to examine the actual online habits and behavior of business travelers as they plan for and book travel. The Keynote Open Web Research (OWR OWR Optical Word Recognition (iArchives) OWR Open Wheel Racing OWR Office of Water Regulation (Western Australia) OWR Ontario Wrestling Recap OWR Omega West Reactor ) for Business Travel is based on research with 1,500 business travelers as they interacted with dozens of leading travel Web sites. In addition to traditional opinion data, Keynote's proprietary research technology allows for the collection of detailed qualitative and behavioral behavioral pertaining to behavior. behavioral disorders see vice. behavioral seizure see psychomotor seizure. data as users surf and perform tasks on the Web. The study focused on business travelers whose travel was unmanaged or lightly managed by their company. Online Travel Agencies vs. Airlines and Hotel Web Sites "The online agencies excel with travelers in general and clearly attract the most online visitors, but business travelers are actually more satisfied with the online experience and services of airline and lodging Web sites," said Dr. Bonny Bonny (bŏn`ē), town, SE Nigeria, in the Niger River delta, on the Bight of Biafra. In the 18th and 19th cent., Bonny was the center of a powerful trading state, and in the 19th cent. it became the leading site for slave exportation in W Africa. Brown, director of research and public services Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. for Keynote. "This differs from all other Keynote studies in the travel industry where the online agencies consistently outperformed supplier sites. Business travelers have a distinctly different view on researching and booking travel than do other travelers, and this presents a significant opportunity for travel suppliers such as airlines and hotels." According to the study, business travelers often use online travel agencies as an information resource and then proceed directly to specific air, hotel or rental car Web sites. Business travelers prefer the online experience of supplier sites, as evidenced by higher customer satisfaction and purchase impact rates, because supplier sites offer more services and options than online agency sites. For instance, business travelers find it easier to determine flight schedules on airline Web sites such as American Airlines American Airlines Major U.S. airline. American was created through a merger of several smaller U.S. airlines and incorporated in 1934. It continued to buy the routes of other airlines, becoming an international carrier in the 1970s; its routes include South America, the and AmericaWest, as opposed to online agency sites. When booking hotel rooms, Internet access See how to access the Internet. is a key decision driver and highly-ranked hotel sites such as Hilton Hil·ton , Conrad Nicholson 1887-1979. American hotel-chain organizer who acquired hotels in many American cities and in 1946 founded the Hilton Hotel Corporation. and Starwood allow you to determine which specific hotels have high-speed Internet See broadband. access, whereas most online agencies do not offer similar information. Price and Selection Top Purchase Drivers In general, the price of a travel service and the selection available on a site are the top drivers for business travelers in determining where to purchase online, with air and lodging supplier sites the clear leaders in pricing satisfaction and the online agencies the clear leaders in selection. JetBlue and Southwest Airlines This article is about the American airline. For the former Japanese airline, see Japan Transocean Air. For the British airline, see Air Southwest. Southwest Airlines Co. were ranked as the sites offering the best prices; whereas Expedia was consistently ranked as providing the best selection. More than 85 percent of business travelers participating in the study mentioned price as a leading consideration, and 48 percent indicated that loyalty programs were a "very important" or "extremely important" consideration. For lodging, price and proximity of the hotel to business/meeting location were equally matched as leading considerations, cited by nearly 80 percent of business travelers. High-speed Internet access was mentioned as a "very important" or "extremely important" consideration by 53 percent of business travelers. A complete list of the leading factors driving purchase decisions is included in the full Keynote report. "In general, travel sites have an opportunity to capture more of the unmanaged travel market and especially to increase sales of travel packages, such as air and hotel combinations, but to do so they need to more clearly demonstrate to customers that they are getting good value," said Brown. Frequency of Travel Strongly Influences Purchase Decisions However, the Keynote study found significant differences in the priorities business travelers place on price -- and other considerations, such as loyalty programs and brand loyalty -- based on the frequency with which they travel and the size of their business. Price decreases in importance the more frequently a businessperson travels, and also for travelers from larger businesses. Loyalty programs, specifically air mileage MILEAGE. A compensation allowed by law to officers, for their trouble and expenses in travelling on public business. 2. The mileage allowed to members of congress, is eight dollars for every twenty miles of estimated distance, by the most usual roads, from his programs, are significantly more important to frequent business travelers -- those traveling at least once every eight weeks -- equaling price as the top consideration for these travelers. Price was of increased importance to less frequent travelers and to those travelers whose travel purchases were unmanaged by their companies. Small business employees were much more likely to consider low cost air carriers such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines. Profile of the Unmanaged/Lightly Managed Business Traveler Overall, business travelers start their research and booking process with a better idea of what they want and what sites they will visit than do leisure travelers, according to the study. More than 40 percent of business travelers start their search at a specific online agency, with Expedia the leading destination followed by Travelocity Travelocity is an online travel agency operated by Travelocity.com LP. Travelocity is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sabre Holdings Corporation, which was a publicly traded company until taken private by Silver Lake Partners in March 2007. and Orbitz This article is about the online travel agency. For the soft drink, see Orbitz (soft drink). Orbitz, Inc. is an Internet travel company headquartered in Chicago. . Approximately 20 percent of business travelers start their search at a supplier site, with airline sites being the leading destination in this group. Another 20 percent start their process by visiting a search engine, with up to 40 percent visiting a search engine at some point during their planning, and Google (Google, Mountain View, CA, www.google.com) The largest search engine on the Web, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University students. In 1996, they developed their "BackRub" search engine, named after its unique page ranking method (explained below). being the leading site followed by Yahoo! The majority of business travelers visit only one type of travel site, either choosing to do business only with online agencies -- or going directly to supplier sites and bypassing the online agencies all together. However, more than 35 percent of business travelers visit multiple types of sites during their planning and booking process. One in three (33%) business travelers have made the trip they are taking before. Half of all business travelers are planning a billable trip, such as visiting a customer or client, with employees of large businesses significantly more likely to be taking such a trip. One-third (33%) of business travelers are traveling to attend a trade show or conference, with mid-size business employees more likely to be taking such a trip. The American Airlines, Cheap Tickets, Delta, Hertz hertz (hûrts) [for Heinrich R. Hertz], abbr. Hz, unit of frequency, equal to 1 cycle per second. The term is combined with metric prefixes to denote multiple units such as the kilohertz (1,000 Hz), megahertz (1,000,000 Hz), and gigahertz , Hilton, Hotels.com Hotels.com provides reservation services for hotel rooms and other places to stay. The company was founded in Dallas, TX in 1991 as Hotel Reservations Network (HRN) by Dave Litman and Bob Diener as a toll-free telephone service, offering consumers a one-stop source for discounted , Hotwire Hotwire can mean one of several things:
The entire report, Keynote Open Web Research (OWR) for Business Travel, is a 100+ page examination of the business travel industry containing hundreds of additional data points and a detailed analysis of the findings. For information about purchasing the full report, visit http://www.keynote.com/syndicated.html "We expect to see travel companies across the board improve their online services, addressing the needs and preferences of these increasingly important customers," said Brown. "There is obviously a critical need for travel companies to learn what their competitors are doing right online and to match that service." Keynote Customer Experience Research Keynote is the leading provider of customer experience research services, offering both syndicated and custom research examining consumer behavior on the Web. Keynote's research provides critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends and competitive Web strategies for a variety of vertical industries. In addition to traditional opinion data, Keynote's proprietary research technology and panel of thousands of real consumers allows for the collection of detailed qualitative and behavioral data that inform its reports. Keynote's syndicated research includes two distinct types of reports: the Keynote Customer Experience (CE) Rankings, which provide competitive benchmarking and rankings of the leading Web sites in a specific industry; and Open Web Research (OWR), which takes a broader look at the customer's experience across the entire Web when performing specific tasks, such as booking business travel. Keynote Open Web Research (OWR) is currently available for the travel package and business travel industries. Keynote CE (CE) Rankings are available for a number of industries including the retail, banking and credit card industries, as well as several travel verticals, including the lodging, cruise and rental car industries. The Keynote CE Rankings are the successor to the Vividence CE Rankings following Keynote's acquisition of Vividence in September 2004. To learn more about Keynote's syndicated research offerings and for a list of the various vertical industry reports that are available, visit: http://www.keynote.com/solutions/cem_syndicated_research.html About Keynote Founded in 1995, Keynote Systems (Nasdaq "KEYN"), The Internet Performance Authority(R), is the worldwide leader in e-business performance management services. Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 19,000 individual subscribers rely on Keynote's growing range of measurement and monitoring, service level and customer experience management services to improve e-business performance by reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and increasing profitability. Keynote is viewed as The Internet Performance Authority due to the company's global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data and analysis, the company's market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets and leading customer research that provides critical business insight into online customer experiences, industry trends, and competitive Web strategies. Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the East, and Belmont to the south. and can be reached at www.keynote.com or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400. Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (C) 2004 Keynote Systems, Inc. |
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