NEW YORK — Leading web researchers Change Sciences Group (www.changesciences.com) released all new data ranking Travel web sites for usability, engagement, and conversion. The rankings are based on Change Sciences’ Experience Cloud platform, which compares how people experience sites with competitors and with the best sites on the web.

The top three performers are easier to use, more engaging and likelier to convert people overall. The bottom performers have usability problems, lack aspects of design that compel people to explore, and are the least likely among the group to convert prospects to customers. “While most travel web sites make it relatively easy to complete basic tasks like finding a room and a rate, they differ greatly in how they support people seeking additional information about what they are booking. Sites that do this well are more engaging and significantly more likely to convert,” explains co-founder and partner, Steve Ellis. In the last year alone, over 148.3 million travel bookings were made online and over 76% of leisure travelers in the U.S. planned their trip online.

The Experience Cloud platform makes it possible to mine the web for design patterns that engender trust and compel people to act. Without the Experience Cloud decision-makers are often limited to their own internal data about user experience, which will not reveal whether a competitor’s site is easier to use or more engaging, and, perhaps most importantly, will not say why.

The user experience of major travel brands for the following companies are covered by Change Sciences: Airbnb, Expedia, Hilton, Hipmunk, Hotels.com, Hyatt, IHG, Jetsetter, Kayak, Marriott, Orbitz, Oyster, Priceline, Starwood Hotels, and Travelocity.

Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity top new Change Sciences User Experience Rankings for Travel Industry while Hipmunk, Airbnb, and Jetsetter land at the bottom.

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Change Sciences works with Fortune 500s, start-ups, and other smart companies in financial services, tech, entertainment, healthcare and e-commerce, having completed more than 700 projects in the last five years and counting 18 Fortune 100 companies as clients. The idea behind the company is simple: provide enterprise teams with the best data and insights about user experience available. The Change Sciences Experience Cloud makes it possible to mine a group of sites in a given industry to determine top performing design patterns. Using the Experience Cloud teams discover their true usability, engagement and conversion gaps by seeing their numbers in the context of competitors’ and the best sites on the web.