Blog

Summertime, and it’s time to head for the sun. Preferably with minimum hassle.

These days, I prefer to book my holidays online. It should be nice and easy to tap a few details into a website and be served up with a selection of packages and destinations. You’d also expect the vast holiday industry to be desperate to increase market share via online bookings.

Why, then, is it so difficult to book a holiday on the web?

When I go to a site, I just want to key in a selection of dates and then view a list of destinations available during that period. This simply isn’t possible on many bookings pages.

I also want to filter information in ways that suit me. For example, if I’m quite happy to stay somewhere that has a three star rating or better, I don’t see why I should be forced to select a ‘four star’ or ‘five star’ option for any given search.

It’s the same story when it comes to some other options. I can see the point of being asked whether you want to depart from a specific London airport, or if you are content to select ‘any London’. But what if I want to run a search that checks for flight availability at two specific London airports? That functionality is often missing.

Rant over! I still prefer to book online, but let’s hope that when I book next year’s holiday these final touches will have been implemented by the big players.

About the author

Nikki is a Client Service Manager & Senior Online Marketing Executive in the Online Marketing team at Coast Digital. She joined the team in January 2008 and is focused on being the interface between the client and the Online Marketing team, running email marketing campaigns for her clients, as well as driving quality and structure throughout the business. Her clients include Wiltshire Farm Foods, apetito, and Slendertone.

Having spent 9 years as a Printed Circuit Board Design Engineer, she ‘fell’ into Digital Marketing in 2003 and has been passionate about it ever since. As such Nikki enjoys playing an important role in a growing company with technology at its heart.