What Happened to Travelocity?
From what we can tell about Travelocity, it seems that they’ve been struggling with the transition from working to usable. (This also seems true of their sister web sites, VirtuallyThere.com and AA.com, all part of the Sabre family.) Contrast that to Expedia, which, a few years back, put a focused effort into their transition, making the user experience a top priority in their design efforts. Interestingly, Orbitz was one of those few organizations that started with a usage-centered perspective from the first day. They knew they were moving into a competitive arena and that making a usable experience would give them a competitive advantage. (It’s worked — they grew to more than $200 million in less than 3 years.
