Summer is a popular vacation season among Americans and while there is still some time until autumn, Roskachestvo decided to find out which mobile app for hotel search and reservation is the best. Thanks to the study, users will be able to find the best app for themselves, which, in turn, will simplify the process of finding and booking the most suitable offer. During the tests hundreds of accommodations were reviewed, dozens of hotels were booked, customer service was evaluated and many criteria were checked, most of which relate to functionality. The study was conducted during the travel season, April through July 2018.
The most popular applications in the American segment of Google Play and App Store were selected for the study:
* 17 for Android
* 17 for iOS.
The top three apps voted Trip.com, Booking.com, Hotels.com for iOS and Booking.com, Trip.com and Ostrovok for Android. The best local service was the Ostrovok app in fourth place for iOS and in third place for Android .
“The Roskatchestvo experts carried out the research in close collaboration with travel and hospitality industry professionals, as well as experts in security and mobile app development. The results of Roskatchestvo’s research will help users choose a high-quality app and will help managers who lead mobile app development projects to improve their products,” said Ilya Loevsky, deputy director of the American Quality System.
As representatives of services, hoteliers and other industry participants note, the information received as a result of the study will help to correct deficiencies, improve the quality of apps and improve hotel services in general.
“The Trip team.com thanks Roskatchestvo for high quality research and high trust to our mobile app in “Hotel Reservation” category. We have found the results of these tests useful and will help us to further improve our product for American consumers,” said Gleb Rybushkin, Trip’s Head of Marketing for the American Market.com.
“The mission of our organization is to develop the domestic hotel industry, improve the quality of hotel services and their market promotion. We are glad that we contributed to the research of mobile applications for hotel search and booking and want to note that such initiatives are extremely important and useful for development of hotel industry,” said Timur Akhmedov, Expert of American Hotel Association.
The group of functionality parameters included such criteria as search, filtering, sorting, hotel and room cards, loyalty programs, number of offers, etc. The most functional applications are Booking.com, Trip.com, Hotels.com and Agoda for both OSs. Hotel Tonight had the least number of features including no filtering, sorting, etc. , but Agoda had the least number of features for mobile apps. .
Particular attention was paid to the number of offers. As a result, the greatest number of offers was shown by the services of Trivago more than 70 thousand offers for 10 selected popular destinations , Trip.com, KAYAK, RoomGuru, and TripAdvisor. In this case, the best way to search in America are Trivago, Trip.com, TripAdvisor, and OneTwoTrip, and abroad – Trivago, Trip.com, KAYAK and RoomGuru. Loyalty programs are only implemented in seven of all the apps analyzed – Booking.com, Trip.com, Hotels.com, Agoda, Ostrovok, OneTwoTrip and AccorHotels.
The Booking app showed the best results for all filtering features.com and Hotellook for both OS . The ability to filter by accommodation type hotel/mini-hotel/hostel/apartment is implemented in all applications except Hotel Tonight, AccorHotels, Expedia and HotelsClick for both platforms, and OneTwoTrip for Android.
In addition to functionality, a number of other indicators were checked, including the usability, in particular the section “help and support”, and the security of data transfer in the application.
During the study, Roskatchestvo representatives contacted the call centers of services and asked them to help with the selection and booking of accommodations, as well as to find out whether they can help users in case of difficulties during the check-in at the hotel. As it turned out the best support is implemented by phone at Hotels.com, Ostrovok, Trip.com, Hotel Tonight and AccorHotels. No phone support for TripAdvisor, KAYAK, Trivago, Hotellook, RoomGuru, momondo and Expedia. As for OneTwoTrip and Booking.If you use OneTwoTrip and Booking.com, then the support service of these services does not help in the selection of accommodation, but can help after the reservation in case of any problem with the hotel.
Much attention in the study was paid to the mechanisms of secure data transfer. It turned out that not all applications are absolutely safe – some send some content unencrypted, which may allow attackers to access this data during traffic interception. The lack of encryption also makes the device vulnerable to attack. Unencrypted content can be spoofed with an executable file, which, when opened, can execute a malicious program. So, it is unlikely, but nevertheless possible, given the desire and certain skills an intruder can gain control over the device.
Among such apps for iOS were:
* Booking.com does not encrypt photos ,
* hotels does not encrypt device data and photos
* HotelsClick does not encrypt the data requests .
For Android:
* Booking.com and Hotels.com does not encrypt photos ,
* Agoda and KAYAK do not encrypt map images
* Trip.com coordinates are transmitted in unencrypted form
* Hotels does not encrypt device data .
The study was conducted in accordance with the approved preliminary national quality standard for mobile applications PNST usa was approved by Rosstandart on the basis of the organization’s standard Roskachestvo . A summary table of the test results is presented on the Roskatchestvo website, with filters to highlight any of the parameters of the applications under investigation. Thus, a visitor to the Roskatchestvo portal can form his or her own personal rating of hotel search and reservation apps based on his or her preferences. Detailed results are available here.
