SAN FRANCISCO—At the Revenue Strategy Summit this summer, Nathalie Corredor, SVP, global strategy, Hilton Worldwide, said, “Information is becoming more transparent and available in more places; it’s less of a differentiator and more of an expectation. Putting my futurist hat on, there’s too much information today for any individual to process. The winner will be the one who can sort through that information and help you personalize what you’re looking for. The future of search is someone who can tell me what’s the best for me.” Metasearch site Hipmunk recently launched new search functions, which it hopes will do just that.
Steve Vargas, lead product manager for Hipmunk, noted there are three major frustrations for travelers: narrowing down location, especially in an unfamiliar city; comparing their options; and knowing if they’re getting the best price. He added that the new design is the result of observing travelers go through the process of searching for a hotel. “One of the key learnings was that people were using 15 tabs just to find the right hotel due to this lack of trust. We realized that giving people the ability to choose something quickly would alleviate some of that dread and make that process fun,” he said.
The new design includes oversized images that are seven times larger than Hipmunk’s previous design; amenity cards—travelers can click on an image and it flips over like a postcard to show the most pertinent information, such as a pool or free WiFi; a compare tool, in which users favorite a hotel to see it plotted on a map along with other accommodation options to see where they are in relation to specific landmarks; and keyword search, which allows users to search for hotels with natural language questions. For instance, guests can ask for a three-star hotel in NYC close to Central Park under $400, and results will appear sorted by high match, medium match and low match.
“Traditional search goes wrong mainly at the point of thinking that users have a certain set of criteria in mind that can be narrowed down by filters,” he explained. “When people come in to a search, they don’t have a set price point, list of required amenities or exact location in mind. Instead, they’ll see a number of listings and they’ll get this feeling of dread or feel overwhelmed and they start using filters just to get some context and narrow the options into a manageable list. I think the biggest problem with traditional search is that travel sites believe that users come in with set expectations of a hotel in mind, but really people just use filters to get grounded and get an idea of what they should be looking for.”
Vargas noted that these enhancements aren’t options travelers have been clamoring for—rather, the enhancements are something they don’t realize they want until they have the option. “People don’t express frustration outwardly,” he said. “It’s like how we didn’t know how frustrating booking a cab was until we got Uber. It’s just the process. Once you make it easier for people, then they realize how difficult the process was in the first place.”