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12 December, 2024
Performance Tracking > 2008 Vacation Planning > Introduction WebSitePulse 2008 Vacation Planning Websites Performance & Uptime ReportAccording to Forrester Research, the number of US leisure travel Bookers - online travelers who use the Internet to both research and buy travel - fell 9% from 2005 to 2007. Fortunately, thanks to the overall growth of the online population and the increase in the number of trips that the remaining Bookers take, as well as the amount of money they spend on travel, online leisure travel spending has increased 41% in three years. What we're seeing is an early warning signal: Fix the problem, or else. To keep online consumers interested in online booking, travel companies need to overhaul their systems to sell the way people want to buy. They must proactively destroy - and then rebuild - their products to be more practical to sell online and humanize the digital experience that they offer on their Web sites. According to BCD Travel, a leading global travel management company, business is generally booming and worldwide business travel keeps growing stronger. With high load factors, increasing published fare levels, growing travel demand and stable capacity, travel buyers will need to search harder to find savings opportunities. The good news is that these opportunities are out there for savvy buyers. This will lead to new discounts on travel that was previously purchased at published rates. With at least 25 major airports at or above their pre-9/11 traffic levels by mid-April, the 2008 vacation season looks to be at least as busy as last year. And with $3-plus per gallon gasoline, air travel will almost certainly increase from 2007. Add to that the confusing "à la carte" pricing airlines have imposed, and vacation and business travelers are likely to visit and revisit vacation planning and booking websites to do research, purchase tickets and check on flight departures and arrivals more frequently than last season. We believe that the most popular vacation planning and booking websites will have to respond to increased web traffic during the summer travel booking period. We have selected twelve popular travel websites from US, Europe and Australia that rank at the highest search engine positions. We will monitor these sites continuously from May 15 through June 30, 2008 and measure the performance levels and the availability of these websites independently and from various remote worldwide monitoring locations to best reflect the End Users' experience. The reports and charts will be updated daily showing the results from the previous day and for the entire monitoring period to the current date. The WebSitePulse Performance Reports measure Website Uptime and Website Response Time as the most important metrics for the availability and the reliability of any web-based operation, critical for the End Users' overall online experience. The Reports reflect not only the performance of the websites home pages, but typically measure a complete web transaction representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. Measurements of the multi-step web transactions are made every 15 minutes, simultaneously from 4 different monitoring locations. The WebSitePulse advanced monitoring system has automated, built-in false alarm prevention and error verification controls that ensure the reliability of the measurement results. The Reports reflect the most common website performance criteria - response time and availability. In-depth analytical information is also collected and stored in the WebSitePulse system for future references. The WebSitePulse Application Monitoring service is used to collect data and produce the Report. |
