Customer Orientation Defies AB Testing Convention in new Hotel Booking Website Design

AMSTERDAM, May 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Booking engine Easytobook.com unveils its new website design today, featuring a more client friendly approach to hotel bookings. After 8 years as a leading player in website conversion from a technical point of view, founder and CEO Omri Amir took the website design process in a more intuitive direction, where technology meets emotional buying factors. It marks a break-away from the conventional evolutionary design in which the only effective route to successful website design is pixel optimization via rigorous testing.

Evolutionary design is a combination of website tests (AB or multivariate) on design, usability and content to increase conversion rate. The incremental nature of these changes often disrupts the overall consistency of the website and hence lowers the quality of customer experience. Revolutionary design overthrows the old design upon going live. This technique is avoided by many organizations, for fear of unleashing too great a level of change on users, and thus creating backlash. Omri Amir believes this can be avoided if a proper user-centered design process is followed.

Amir, considered one of the thought leaders in travel tech, is convinced that the battle for website optimization can only be won by more explicitly including customer experience in the variables for success: "The landscape is changing from dinosaur hotel directories to a place where the customer is in the lead. You can't get away with any website and service based on search engine optimization anymore; customers demand a new approach in web design that we will pursue in the years to come."

Consolidating in-house technical skills and creativity, Easytobook.com's R&D team channelled their expertise towards crafting a higher level of customer experience. Rather than operating autonomously, the company invited its most engaged Facebook fans for user testing of mock-up pages in order to fine-tune the finished product.

The result is a more open, aesthetically pleasing and fully functional portal. The new design includes the presentation of larger, higher quality photographs of cities, attractions and accommodations. The booking process is made easier thanks to clearer buttons and guidance, and additional interactive functionality has been added to the 'hotel location' section.

"Overall, finding and booking a hotel feels less like having to do your homework and more like the beginning of a journey," says Hompe Heijmerink, the recently recruited new COO of Easytobook. Heijmerink, a travel industry expert with a successful track record at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, brings a service oriented market approach to the table in a company that has so far won its battles by statistically determined adjustments, thus complementing the strategic insights of Omri Amir.

The new website can be viewed at http://www.easytobook.com and commented on at http://www.facebook.com/easytobook.

Founded in 2004, European hotel booking service Easytobook.com  grew fast and was listed in the Deloitte Fast500 for 3 consecutive years. Offering hotels in major destinations across the continent, the company became successful by focusing on optimal conversion in the booking process, with a performance driven marketing strategy. Currently it lists 120,000 hotels, which are marketed worldwide, with an emphasis on US and EU markets. With a headcount of 70 people, the company was bought by Travix under BCD Holdings  in August 2011, which reported  a record turnover in 2011 of $20.8 billion, an 18% growth from 2010. Travix plans to go IPO in the coming years.