Booking.com UX - Decoding 5 years of change (2018 vs 2023)

Booking.com: A 5-Year Rewind

Five years ago, I checked out Booking.com's buying experience. I pointed out how much they were trying to get us to click 'buy'.

Take a look at my old post from back then with screenshots. It's super fun to compare their style then and now – it totally surprised me!

Since we face a similar thing at Requiremints.com, where we suggest top products to buyers, I wanted to see if Booking.com was more about helping users or making quick sales.

Back to Booking, 2018 Style

Quoting from my five-year-old article:

Booking overwhelmed me with 32 different messages all aimed to ensure I would complete the reservation as fast as possible. All are presented within just 4 web pages, for a single hotel search!

For a throwback feel, check out these vintage screenshots from Booking 2018 of the search results and the room price breakdown:

Even if you aren't a UX expert, it is pretty clear that back in 2018, Booking wanted deals done super fast. They seemed more about making a quick sale than helping the user.

Fast Forward to 2023: A Shift in Tactics

Repeating my 2018 drill, I searched for a hotel in New York. And wow, things have changed!

From 32 pushy messages in 2018, we now have just 8 in 2023. And they're friendlier, sharing more about the hotel than pushing for a sale. Booking slashed a whopping 75% of its aggressive messages. The result? A smoother, cleaner buying journey.

In essence, Booking adopted a sunnier strategy, ditching most of the tacky promotions, and instead zooming in on enhancing the hotel-to-buyer fit.

Booking's Makeover (2023 vs 2018):

Gone are the days of:

• Promoted hotels and ads (maybe I missed them?)
• Best-seller tags, like those Amazon shows on their search results page
• Showing hotels that are all booked up
• Pushy tags like “great value today”, “in high demand”, “You just missed it, last room sold out today”, “Excellent choice for couples”

Welcome to 2023 with:

• Tags of "Travel Sustainable Level" - Promoting eco-friendly hotels
• Tags for new hotels - new misleading ranking of hotels with low amount of reviews.
• Clean, simple experience with green highlights – they emphasize positive offerings such as: "breakfast included", "free cancellation", and "no prepayment". The only red alert that remains indicates that rooms are running out.

My Insights:

Frankly, I was taken aback by the transformation in Booking's user experience. They've pivoted to a more refreshing buying experience that puts both the user experience and customer satisfaction front and center.

Here are my three main takeaways:

1. Respect your customers - From a functionality perspective, Booking's main features in the buying process haven't really changed. However, what has changed is that Booking now allows buyers to find a better match with hotels and offers sellers a fairer way to compete.
2. A/B Testing vs. Long-term Value - For all the product managers out there who were raised on being data-driven and who swear by A/B testing, here's a thought:I don't have inside intel on Booking's A/B testing, but it's evident that some metrics, especially those tied to short-term profits, took a hit when they discarded the promotional strategies they'd honed over the years. A/B testing typically zeroes in on short-term metrics. Deciding on such grand scales, favoring long-term benefits over short-term gains, is no small feat, especially when remembering any decision at Booking impacts millions.
3. Focus on What Matters - To me, the most challenging aspect of building a product is determining its focus. It's tempting to keep adding features, writing more content, or inserting messages to not miss out on any potential customer. Streamlining a business offering demands courage.Looking at Booking's trajectory over their search results and the hotel pages, it's evident that they've mostly done away with text and prompts over the past five years. Those messages that underwent rigorous A/B testing for years? Gone.It seems they've realized: less truly is more.

In short, I think Booking made a good choice to better match buyers with sellers and make their platform feel more positive. But, I believe they can and should take this approach one step further:

• Booking should help buyers even more to find the best match, by adding tools for better decisions. This might hurt some cheap low-quality hotels, but good hotels will still do well and great service will become a standard for all hotels.
• Booking should make their buying experience even simpler. Right now, there's too much going on, still too much text and repeated information.

To wrap it up, Booking is big enough to significantly shape the accommodation industry. They should lead the way in offering better accommodations and help buyers make the best decisions for themselves (similar to what we do with product recommendations at Requiremints.com).