Hotels GPI WebcastIntroducing the Latest Gómez Transactional Index

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Dial-in Instructions

• Dial In #: 888.339.2688

• International Dial In #: 617.847.3007

• Participant Passcode: 13875300

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Introductions

John Lovett, Senior Performance Analyst - John Lovett is responsible for competitive site performance and usability analysis and testing delivered via the company's Performance Benchmark Assessment, Usability Benchmark Assessment and Gómez Performance Index products and services.

Kevin Heilbronner is the US Editor for hsyndicate.com,wiredhotelier.com and hospitalitynet.org, providing streaming multimedia-content for these websites. A familiar voice in Washington, DC, Heilbronner is the stadium announcer for the NBA's Washington Wizards,WNBA's Washington Mystics and WUSA's Washington Freedom.

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Agenda

• Benchmarking Defined• Consumer Market Research• Hotels GPI Methodology• Inaugural Hotels GPI Ranking• Detailed Page Performance• Search Availability• Publication Frequency & Distribution• Benchmarking Action Items

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Hotels GPI Webcast

What is Transactional Benchmarking?

• Gómez takes a task-based approach that emulates typical customer interactions to establish performance management standards.

• These data provide a real-world view of navigational and transactional speed and how frequently that process is impeded by errors.

• Gómez Performance Indices (GPIs) provide a gauge for comparative measurement and analysis of Web site performance.

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Consumer Perceptions of Travel & Hotel Web Site Performance

• 25.4% of the adult online population reported low satisfaction with the Web site speed of Travel and Hotel sites they’ve visited in the past six months.

• 88% of respondents reported some level of degradation in page load speed at particularly slow industry Web sites.

• A whopping 25.8% reported slow performing sites in half or more of their visits.

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Consumer Reactions Towards Slow Travel & Hotel Web Sites

• The most common reaction is to attempt to refresh the page

• Upon the second and third attempts, customers abandon the site

• One-third of these customers turn to the competition

• Nearly 7% pick up the phone

Survey Question: Think about those times you've experienced a travel/hotel web site as being particularly slow. Which of thefollowing courses of action did you take [first, second, third]?

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Consumer Resilience

• The good news is ... customer tolerance for poor performance online is high

• Customers are more sympathetic towards broken than slow sites

• These trends indicate an acceptance of the online channel -- despite performance shortcomings

Survey Question: In general, after experiencing web sites that have been particularly slow or broken/malfunctioning, do you ever return to those websites?

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Methodology

All benchmark metrics generated from the Gómez Performance Network:

• A network of 60-plus measurement nodes across twenty Internet backbones; benchmark nodes are geographically dispersed to represent the Internet user population

• The only real-time reporting tool of its kind, managed 24/7

• Tests run at T1 speed on regular 60-minute intervals

• All benchmark methodologies are scalable and made publicly available

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Hotels GPI Methodology

Task Sequence = Book a room in Boston:

• Access the company’s homepage

• Navigate to the hotel section of the Web site

• Initiate a search request for a hotel room in Boston

• Select the first hotel presented in the search results

• Click to view rates

• End the transaction

The transaction varies slightly at each site due to navigationaldifferences and the architecture of each Web site. Yet, all transactions follow a similar path.

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Hotels GPI Webcast

How is performance reported?

Response Time: metrics report on the time elapsed while downloading each Web page in the entire multi-step transaction process (including all embedded objects). This takes into account the time necessary to translate data into a format that browsers can read.

Success Rate: also known as availability, measures the percentage of transactions completed without errors within a reasonable time frame.

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Inaugural Hotels GPI Ranking

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Hotels GPI Webcast

A Deeper Look At Page Performance

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Search Availability

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Object-Level Detail

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Publication Frequency & Distribution

Gómez will produce the Hotels GPI on a monthly basis.

Rankings will be published on the Gómez.com corporate Web site and distributed through the Hsyndicate partner network.

• Hsyndicate.com

• Hospitalitynet.org

• Wiredhotelier.com

• AH&LA.com

• HSMAI.org

• HFTP.org

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Benchmarking Action Items

• Evaluate your online offering:–How well does my site perform? –How fast/reliable does my site need to be?–Where do I stand against my competition?

• Manage your Web site performance:–Establish operational standards–Respond quickly to mal-performing Web sites–Diagnose problematic pages and learn from the competition

• Improve your bottom line:–Improve customer satisfaction–Increase revenue through the Internet channel–Leverage performance for greater market penetration

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Hotels GPI Webcast

Q & A

Please provide feedback via our online poll, accessible on your screen.

Benchmarking Web Site Performance

John Pratt, Senior Sales Executive

(781) 768-2438

Jpratt@gomez.com