WebSitePulse 2012 Vacation Planning Websites Performance & Uptime Report

It is that time of the year again when we all start counting the days to our summer vacation. Luring the customers with attractive deals, the major online destinations have already prepared for the increased traffic during the upcoming period. And rightly so. One research shows that 64% of an estimated 154 billion Americans have planned at least one trip for leisure purposes in the next six months. It goes without saying that the majority of these vacationing people will at least search for their holiday online. And at least 40% of all travelers will book their holiday online. Currently, the online travel penetration by regions, as of 2011 looks like this:

• US: 39%
• Western Europe: 38%
• Asia-Pacific: 23%
• Latin America: 18%

Another research, conducted by ystats.com, concludes that online travel sales in the USA only are bound to increase with about 10% for 2012. Additionally, the online travel segment will represent almost a third of the global travel market value. All these stats combined mean that the major online booking destinations have a lot at stake this year. They have to outperform their competitors to bring home the lion's share of the revenue that the flood of customers will generate.

We, on the other hand, are very interested as to how they will handle the increased traffic and if their sites will deliver the appropriate content within the industry standards. That is why during the period May 19th - June 30th, WebSitePulse will monitor twelve popular travel websites from US, Europe and Australia that rank at the highest search engine positions. We will measure their performance levels and availability independently and from various remote worldwide monitoring locations to best reflect the End Users' experience. As usual, we will be publishing the statistics in our Vacation Planning Performance Tracking report.

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.