100 Websites to Benchmark for Traveling Products

If you are an experienced UX researcher or designer you already know how important benchmarking is in our products. But it’s very time-consuming work and if you dive in without making a structure you’ll be drowning in a lot of data. Because it’s not just about the observation or gathering data it’s about finding new ideas too. As a UX researcher, I know the value of the work and I decide to make a list for those who work in the same industry.

But first, let’s answer some questions a junior UX designer or researcher may ask:

What benchmark is?

UX benchmarking is a procedure of using specific metrics to assess the user experience of a product or compare it with other products available on the market. UX benchmarking helps you assess how your product design is progressing over time and where it falls compared to competitors. When you start benchmarking you need to create a baseline. A starting point. Otherwise, you’ll have nothing to measure against.

When you should do the benchmarking?

Actually, you can begin any time from concept, to live working product, to every iteration that follows. But basically, if you haven’t started already… start NOW!
But how often? We work with many different customers who have different intervals in which they run their benchmarking. Sometimes it’s annually, sometimes’s biannually, and sometimes quarterly or even monthly. It really depends on your development cycle and how often you’re rolling out design changes. Anyway consider that as customers get smarter our designs are never really complete, we’re always improving them. But you can think of a benchmarking study as a kind of snapshot in time, capturing the experience of a specific version of the product or service. Benchmarking can happen at the end of one design cycle and before the next cycle begins. After all, It can be up to your team to decide how often you conduct benchmarking studies.

Why benchmarking is so valuable?

Benchmarking allows us to assess our impact and improvement. It’s helpful for reflecting on our process and design choices. There’s a lot of value that benchmarking can provide to product or service teams.
But benchmarking’s real power comes in when you show those results externally, for example, to stakeholders or clients.

Now it’s time to dive into the websites list:

All in one

First, we’ll start with the most famous websites and the one with providing hotel reservations and flight tickets plus other services like rent care or train ticket and others…

Booking.com

Kayak.com
Edreams.com
Lastminute.com
Lastminutetravel.com
momondo.com

Cheapoair.com
Bravofly.com
Ebookers.com
Expedia.com

Eurowings.com
Flighthub.com
Globehunters.com
Hophs.com
Kiwi.com

Justfly.com
Myflightsearch.com
Studentuniverse.com
Rehlat.com
Trip.com

City.travel
Orbitz.com
ikyu.com
Travelocity.com
agoda.com

Southwest.com
Priceline.com
Omio.com
Cheapoair.com
Skyscanner.net

Google.com/travel
Skiplagged.com
Ryanair.com
Allegiantair.com

Flight Ticket Only

airfarewatchdog.com

Lufthansa.com
Flightfox.com
Condor.com
Seatguru.com
Fluege.com

Skiplagged.com
Delta.com

Hotel Room Only

airbnb.com

Vrbo.com
Alltherooms.com
Couchsurfing.com
Hostelworld.com
Hoteltonight.com

Hotels.com
i-escape.com
Tablethotels.com
Welcomebeyond.com
Sawdays.co.uk

Oyster.com
Oyorooms.com
Hostelworld.com

City Guides

Tripadvisor.com

Inyourpocket.com
Swissotel.com
Spottedbylocals.com
Getyourguide.com
Lonelyplanet.com

Looking For Adventure?

Responsibletravel.com

Workaway.info
Uchbetteradventures.com
wwoof.net
Mountainkingdoms.com
Wildfrontierstravel.com

Highandwild.co.uk
Theplanetd.com
Cozycozy.com
Travellerspoint.com
Explore.co.uk

Wanna Camp?

Goglamping.net

Pitchup.com
Discovercamping.ca
Campreservations.ca
Recreation.gov
Hipcamp.com

Campaglam.com
Reserveamerica.com
Reservecalifornia.com
Wisconsin.goingtocamp.com
Koa.com

Campendium.com
Camping.info
Pincamp.de

Travel Blog

Nationalgeographic.com

Atlasobscura.com
Expertvagabond.com
Nathab.com
Fodors.com
Cntraveler.com

Journeywoman.com
Thereshegoesagain.org

Travel Community

Worldpackers.com

Community-travel.net
Tripver.com
Lonelyplanet.com

That’s not all…
Of course, there are lots of other good websites that I may miss, but you can comment for me to add. Also, I can come up with a second list for you. Besides, It can be useful in order to be aware of your competitors or cooperator.

In the end, I just wanna thank Mr.Pugo for the inspiration and support.