With online travel agencies battling for customers, improving the Web customer interface has been a focus for years. Some airline booking displays have been honed to allow for a display of multiple prices, but until now, hotel booking sites have been plagued with the need to click incessantly in order to compare prices. A new display matrix is changing that.
CheapOair Hotels has created a new online display that allows users to see all available hotels organized by category and other criteria. A roll-over function pops up a more detailed description of each property. For a first look at what is available in a city during specific dates, this system offers an easy way to get a quick snapshot of hotel availability and prices.
The new Cheapoair.com display can be set to display properties according to distance from the city center, by price and by name. The default view is by price. This view allows users to see the lowest priced hotels available by category.
This new display is part of an effort by CheapOair.com to push into the top tier of online travel agencies. CheapOair Hotels plans to include user reviews, dynamic packaging and a Google map that clearly pinpoints all hotel options available on one map.
Until this new display, hotel results were shown on virtually all online travel agency sites as either lists or generalized matrixes that didn’t include hotel names or specific locations. Time will tell whether CheapOair.com will be able to shift traffic because of the new display. However, consumers will be the winners if this technology allows for better and easier comparison shopping.
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Aloha Charlie:
This site works well, if one is under the misguided notion that the star ratings used for sorting purposes are actually accurate. I have noticed in my own market that the star ratings on this site must be taken from Expedia, Orbitz or from the individual property’s own website. In one case, a condo rental agency is listed as a 2 star property.
No where could I find a definition of the meaning of each star rating on CheapOAir’s website. I realize that is caveat emptor relative to all hotel web sites when it comes to property ratings but CheapOAir Hotels, in combining star data from various sources that each give various meanings to their ratings, makes a mockery of and demeans all hotel ratings.
I may be missing something about this site, but I can get basically the same information from Expedia and a map showing where the properties are located. The “Find Lodging in New View” feature on Expedia is especially helpful. The Cheapoair site has no map and no additional information that I find useful.
I agree with Lybgebgr.
Momondo, too, already has all these funcions – and more!
Momondo can be set to display hotels according to distance from the city center, by price, name and rating. Also CheapOair’s vision about including Google map has already been realised by Momondo.
Tourism predictably has been severely hit in many countries or specific cities due to this recession we are experiencing. New York is a prime example, known as a popular location for those looking to buy cheap Levis and other American goods during the day and enjoy a vibrant city at night; these difficult times have meant the uptake for hotels has been very low.
Finding any cheap hotel had become easy. You just need to put some effort. There are many websites designed to help you in selecting the right hotel for you. Hotel price comparison websites are developed to serve the purpose. You can compare the rates, amenities offered by the hotel from this source.