Technology can improve travel experiences by reducing pain points and stressors along the journey. Today, Expedia Group and business strategy Firm Magid released the Online Travel Friction Index, finding travellers want suppliers to offer a seamless travel experience, and to quickly and effectively handle any challenge during their travels. The research is aligned with Expedia Group’s priority focus to unleash the power of its platform to build out traveller and partner solutions that can help knock down the barriers to travel, making it easier, more enjoyable, more attainable, more accessible and in doing so, ultimately bring the world within reach for billions of people around the globe.
What is a Frictionless Travel Experience?
Removing travel friction requires a deep understanding of customer pain points. Expedia Group’s Innovation Lab tests new products continuously, leveraging advanced technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning, eye tracking and face reader technology to understand travellers’ focus on a web page and the emotions they experience while booking travel.
These tests recently uncovered the attributes travellers value the most that provide an easy-to-use, or frictionless online booking experience. Friction reduction occurs through the creation of extensive end-to-end user experience research, highly efficient coordinated processes, iterative product development, and obsession with customer and partner centricity.
The Online Travel Friction Index research identified key factors that reduce traveler friction through a ‘friction reduction index.’; a weighted average numerical score rating over 15 experience attributes that nearly 850 online travel users, ages 18-55, used to rate their experiences related to research, shopping and booking of travel products on various travel websites. Results from this research identified the top five most impactful friction reduction attributes as:
- An easily navigable booking website
- Inventory that is the best value
- Ability to filter and sort a specific room type
- Option to redeem special offers
- Ability to quickly filter and sort specific hotel location criteria
Expedia Group brands consistently ranked higher in all five areas than other OTAs or branded chain sites that were included in the research. Expedia Group is also rated at least as well as, if not significantly higher, than hotel direct booking sites on every attribute in the ‘friction reduction’ index.
| Friction Reduction Index Score Results | |
| Expedia Group | 816 |
| Other OTAs | 799 |
| Hotel Direct Sites | 792 |
| Meta Sites | 788 |
Expedia Group and Magid established an online study of 847 travellers between the ages of 18-55 from the United States and United Kingdom. Respondents must have booked at least one hotel stay using any OTA (online travel agency) within the past year. An index ranging from 100 (most friction) to 1000 (least friction) was created from a comprehensive list of weighted attributes using a Partial Least Squares regression model.
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