TTE: Experts say website speed is underrated

Travel companies are underestimating the importance of speed on their websites, say experts.

Speaking at Travel Technology Europe this week, online travel and technology specialists said companies needed to combine engaging content with really speedy delivery.

Travel Intelligence chief executive Alan Josephs said: “Speed is underrated. One of the reasons Google is so successful is not necessarily because it brings back relevant results but because it brings back results super quickly.”

Fellow panellists at Travolution’s Big Debate said the optimum time for web pages to load and websites to react had come down.

“Six to eight seconds does not seem like a long time, but when you’re sitting there in front of your PC it does feel like a long time,” said Traveltainment managing director Andrew Nicholson.

Nicholson also predicted image search would be the next ‘battleground’ and that some travel companies were already taking advantage by devoting some of their adword spend to owning the results within Google Images.

“There are smart businesses out there now paying a fraction of their marketing spend on images but getting 10 to 15 times back.”