Global Benchmark: Travel Services Websites

Learn from the best travel services websites and mobile apps

This report provides a uniquely global website analysis of travel service companies. We selected eight companies that offer a range of travel-related services. Our goal was not to include as many companies as possible but to focus on a diverse range of companies and some of the world’s leading brands.

Websites profiled:

• Booking.com
• Expedia
• Hotels.com
• Kayak
• Orbitz
• Travelocity
• TripAdvisor
• Yelp

We noted the languages these companies support, and we visited German, French, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian websites (to name a few). We looked for instances of companies supporting and promoting social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in different languages. We studied how these websites direct users to localized websites. And we visited the websites through mobile devices to note whether and how these companies have embraced mobile. We even downloaded a number of mobile apps for both the iPad and iPhone.

This industry report is based on analysis conducted for the 2013 Web Globalization Report Card, in which we analyzed 150 global websites across 15 industry categories.

Table of Contents

• Learning from the Leaders in Web Globalization
• The Top 25 Global Websites
• Unique Challenges of the Travel Industry
• Web Globalization Best Practices
• Web Globalization and Mobile
• Travel Services Overview
• Language Analysis


• Part I: Industry Rankings and Profiles
• Website Rankings
• Booking.com
• Expedia
• Hotels.com
• Kayak
• Orbitz
• Travelocity
• TripAdvisor
• Yelp


• Part II: How the Websites Were Scored
• Methodology
• Global Reach (Languages)
• Global Navigation
• Global/Mobile Architecture
• Localization & Social
• Methodology FAQ
• What Do the Scores Mean?
• Globalization Terminology

About the Author

John Yunker has helped a wide range of Fortune 500 companies improve their global websites and application. He has experience consulting with some of the world's largest companies and has also worked as senior program manager at Microsoft. He authored the first book devoted to the emerging field of web globalization, Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies. John speaks at numerous industry events, including Localization World, Internet Retailer, and the Unicode Conference and has been quoted on global topics in publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He is also editor of the popular web globalization blog Global by Design.

The Web Globalization Report Card is a copyright of Byte Level Research LLC. Trademark pending.