TRAVELGURU, INDIA’S largest hotel network and a premier travel solutions provider, has launched a brand new hotels’ user interface (UI) on its website to enhance users’ overall hotel booking experience.

After analysing existing user surfing patterns and understanding customers’ hotel purchase requirements, Travelguru designed the new UI to provide a richer user experience to its customers. With a unique focus on the hotels business, it has constantly endeavoured to improve the user experience on this relatively involved purchasing decision.

Commenting on the latest website advancement, Hari V Krishnan – vice president, product and marketing, Travelguru, said, “The hotels user requires a lot of relevant data to make their booking decision. Our new hotels user interface helps the user access multiple hotel details within the same search results page, thus reducing navigation time. This in turn facilitates a better user experience and allows the user to make quicker, more informed decisions.”

The new hotels UI includes the ‘Google Maps’ featured for viewing hotel locations on a map, which would actually plot the hotels on the map for users to locate a particular hotel within a city they are visiting for the first time. The ‘Search by Locality’ feature further filters the hotel search on the basis of a particular locality in a city or destination (example Colaba in Mumbai).

Several other new features have also been introduced, wherein, the content can be viewed with the help of ‘Tabstrip’ (tab-based browsing) as well as other options to let users search by hotel name, star rating and amenities. Another smart use of technology is DHTML layering, which in one instance allows the user to view detailed user reviews and ratings of hotels without deviating from the search results page.

“This new streamlined UI uses the best of modern technology to make the user experience seamless and information speedily and readily available,” added Krishnan.

About Travelguru

Travelguru, India’s largest hotel network, offers access to over 4,000 hotels in India and over 72,000 hotels worldwide. It offers travellers the opportunity to plan and purchase their travel in a transparent, easy and customisable manner with instant bookings and confirmations. Strategic partnerships and deep supplier relationships give Travelguru the edge as an aggregator of travel services. Sorting hotels by user reviews and several other criteria are some of the distinctive value-added services. In December 2007, Travelguru fully acquired Desiya.com – a company focussed on hotel aggregation, distribution and technology to further strengthen the leadership position in hotel distribution. Travelguru facilitates a wide range of travel options and recommendations for domestic as well as international travellers. The Travelguru hotel advisors guide you to the most convenient place to stay including rates, amenities, landmarks and so on across India. It promotes properties from budget to luxury, single room to serviced apartment, business accommodation to leisure houseboat.