Audit Service

‘Travel Tours & Experience Booking’ Website UX Audit

What are the top 40 UX improvements for your Travel Tours & Experience Booking site? How does your UX performance compare to sites like Sea Paradise, Extranomical Tours, Wild Rover Tours, Sea Saffron, Much Better Adventures, Ziptrek Ecotours, and Take Walks?

Based on the findings from Baymard Institute’s 130,000+ hours of User Experience (UX) research, Baymard will conduct a Travel Tours & Experience Booking UX audit of your travel website.

The in-depth Travel Tours & Experience Booking UX audit will be based on 340+ weighted UX parameters uncovered during our large-scale UX testing specifically of Online Travel Agency, Travel Tours & Experience Booking websites. This will provide you with:

  • a detailed 120+ page audit report outlining 40 prioritized and research-backed user experience improvements for your Travel Tours & Experience Booking website,
  • provide best practice implementation examples and inspiration from other Travel Tours & Experience Booking websites, for each of the 40 identified UX improvements to your site,
  • a detailed unbiased UX performance analysis across the 340+ UX parameters to document your current state and identify the best areas to improve,
  • compare your site’s UX performance directy to the performance of other Travel Tours & Experience Booking websites: Sea Paradise, Extranomical Tours, Wild Rover Tours, Sea Saffron, Much Better Adventures, Ziptrek Ecotours, and Take Walks.

Learn more about our Travel Tours & Experience Booking UX audit analysis, deliverables, and costs in the 5 sections below:


Carnival Cruise Lines Logo
We like what we are reviewing from the audit - great analysis and feedback.
David Polanco UX Lead at Carnival Cruise Lines

What’s Included in a Travel Tours & Experience Booking UX Audit?

  • A full UX analysis and assessment of your desktop and mobile websites — conducted every year by lead UX researchers at Baymard Institute, utilizing Baymard’s more than 130,000+ hours of large-scale UX research.

  • 6 detailed UX scorecards with a total of 340+ UX performance scoring parameters, used for direct UX performance comparison against other Travel Tours & Experience Booking websites (Sea Paradise, Extranomical Tours, Wild Rover Tours, Sea Saffron, Much Better Adventures, Ziptrek Ecotours, and Take Walks). In addition, you will also get a UX comparison to 244 top-grossing US and European e-commerce sites, to benchmark how your site stacks up to general user expectations.

  • The auditors will write a detailed 120+ page report with 40 suggestions for UX improvement. Each suggestion includes a description of the identified user experience issue along with a proposed solution and 2–4 best practice examples from other Travel Tours & Experience Booking travel websites, and occationally examples outside the industry for cross-industry inspiration.

  • A 2-hour video conference where we go over the audit results with you and your team, to discuss the findings and suggestions for improvements.

  • 12 follow-up calls with your UX auditor after delivering the UX audit findings. For feedback on any redesigns you create, a light review of prototypes, questions, etc.

  • A detailed Year-Over-Year UX performance comparison to past audits – documenting your UX progress, and showing how you stack up to the competition and to user’s increasing expectations, every year.

  • Your whole organization gets annual complimentary access to Baymard Premium with full access to Baymard’s 130,000+ hours of UX research findings, UX certification, etc. (normally $2600/year).


Etsy Logo
Thank you. This was an excellent piece of work: professional, thorough, and actionable for the team. We’re very happy with the work Baymard has done for us.
Alex Wright Director of Research at Etsy

UX Audit Focus

The audit will cover the following areas of your online user experience:

  • Homepage — The homepage structure, design, carousels, personalization, and promotions.

  • Main Navigation — The visual design of the site’s taxonomy including navigation menus and the visual hierarchy.

  • Site Taxonomy — The structural component of the site’s categories, including information architecture and category naming.


  • Search Form & Logic — Search form design and function, both pre- and post-search, including the design and behavior of the search field, query persistence, and more.

  • Search Autocomplete — How the autocomplete feature should be designed and function, the types of suggestions it should make, keyboard input behavior, etc.

  • Search Results — Layout and design of search results, including search snippets and loading more results, autocorrecting misspellings, providing a helpful ‘No Results’ page, and more.


  • List Layout — The design and features of the overall tour list layout, including breadcrumbs, how to approach novel navigation methods, avoiding the subdivision of lists, etc.

  • Loading Tour ListingsList Items: Tour Info & Thumbnails — How to load listings, including how many tours to display by default, how new tours should be loaded, and navigation between list items and tour detail pages.

  • List Items: Tour Info & Thumbnails — What information and thumbnails to include for each tour and experience listing, how to format and display it, etc.

  • List Items: Interface & Hit Areas — Visual presentation of information and arrangement of interface elements within list items, including showcasing unique features, and more.

  • Filtering: Available Filters — The types of filters users shopping for travel tours and experiences need to narrow tour lists to a manageable selection, as well as common pitfalls to avoid and optimizations to employ.

  • Filtering: Scope & Logic — Common pitfalls and optimizations such as allowing multiple filter values of the same filter type to be combined, displaying applied filters, live updating the list as filters are applied, etc.

  • Filtering: Interface & Layout — Layout and interface styling details that can influence the discoverability of filters, when to promote or truncate filters, etc.

  • Sorting — Sorting interface and scope, including the sort types needed by users, default sort type, sorting directions, why most alphabetical sorting should be avoided, how to implement sorting by “User Ratings”, and more.


  • Page Layout — This collection of guidelines covers the predominant page layouts used on travel tours and experience booking sites for the Tour Details page, how they each perform, and which layouts to avoid.

  • Tour Information & Specifications — How users engage with and rely on the tour and experience information, the type of content needed, and how to structure and style it.

  • Tour Images & Videos — The visual assets users shopping for travel tours and experiences need to evaluate them effectively and how to display them.

  • The “Book” Section — How to provide visibility and clarity in the booking input flow, and users’ ability to confidently make the selections necessary to begin the booking process.

  • User Reviews — How to implement user reviews including filtering, sorting, navigation, rating distribution summaries, and more.

  • Cross-Sells & Cross-Navigation — Cross-sell design, placement, and logic, as well as cross-navigation elements such as breadcrumbs, recently viewed tours, etc.


  • Checkout Types & Layout — Layout and design of checkout process steps, including the design and position of the cart link in the site-wide header and the primary button throughout checkout; minimizing form intimidation, avoiding multi-column layouts, using “Enclosed Checkout” designs, etc.

  • Shopping Cart Interface & Layout — Implementation of the shopping cart page, including item information, quantity selectors, “Save” features, and order summary information.

  • Customer & Address Information — Form fields for all personal user data, including privacy concerns, shipping and billing addresses, international addresses, phone fields, address auto-detection techniques, etc.

  • Payment Flow & Methods (Incl. Third-Party) — The payment methods interface, integrating and displaying third-party payment methods, gift card redemption, charging in international currencies, coupon code form fields, and more.

  • Credit Card Form — Credit card field design, card validation logic and formatting, expiration date, security code, cardholder name inputs, field sequence, and card type selection.

  • Reservation Review — How to present reservation details for review so that users feel confident and encouraged to complete their booking.

  • Reservation Confirmation — The implementation of post-booking confirmations, including the information and actions needed on the confirmation page and booking confirmation email.

  • User Interactions & Distractions — Common interactive components, including load indicators, providing feedback on user actions, where to avoid “Apply” buttons, embedding content from third-parties, and more.

  • Validation Errors & Data Persistence — Error recovery and address validation, how to improve users’ ability to locate, understand, and resolve errors, design and logic of ‘address validators’.

  • Field Labels & Microcopy — Marking optional and required fields, appropriate label positions, inline labels, providing tooltips for unconventional features, optimizing microcopy and descriptions, and more.

  • Field Design & Input Optimization — Form elements, inputs, and selections, choosing the right type of interface, which types of field masking and character restrictions to avoid, pitfalls of drop-downs and radio buttons, custom designed input fields, and more.


  • Mobile Basics — Content and structure of mobile site vs. desktop site, size and spacing of of hit areas, multiple hit-areas within the same visual element, font-sizes, landscape mode, bugs and quirks vulnerable to the mobile platform, auto-zoom, etc.

  • Mobile Site Homepage & Main Navigation — Main navigation design and logic, double-hit area issues, homepage structure and design, auto-rotating carousels, etc.

  • Mobile Search — Mobile search fields design, autocomplete, misspellings and synonyms, etc.

  • Mobile Tour Listings — Listings on mobile, listings thumbnails, listings information, filters, sorting, etc.

  • Tour Details Pages — Product page structure, maps, tour images, video, video players and image galleries, tour descriptions, etc.

  • Mobile Booking Checkout UX — Incl. payment, order review, linear checkout flows, mobile process steps, optional vs. required fields, minimizing number of fields, form field label placement in smartphone portrait and landscape modes, inline labels, floating labels, grouping checkout info for mobile overview, field context, location detection, touch keyboard auto-correct, optimized keyboards, auto-capitalization, etc.

Custom Travel Tours & Experience Booking Competitors

In addition to auditing your site UX and comparing it to Sea Paradise, Extranomical Tours, Wild Rover Tours, Sea Saffron, Much Better Adventures, Ziptrek Ecotours, and Take Walks, we can also expand the project scope to include a custom competitive audit against any local or direct Travel Tours & Experience Booking competitor(s) you’d like. This is available for sites in most countries and languages.


Nike Inc. Logo
Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.
Will Close Director of A/B Testing at Nike.com

What Are Audits For?

Most commonly, our UX audit services are used by:

  • Sites that would like to benchmark their UX performance to see how they stack up against major competitors and “State of the Art” sites, to know where resources are best spent on further UX improvements.
  • Sites that would like inspiration and verification of their new redesign. For example, before spending resources on the final production code — auditing prototype designs are cheaper than re-coding.
  • Optimized sites that need a pair of external and unbiased eyes to identify the last tweaks and improvements.
  • Sites that would like to track their UX performance year-over-year, to measure and document UX progress towards stakeholders and over time.

Return on Investment

Even the smallest improvement in conversion rate for any site with significant sales will lead to a notable return on investment. For example, an improvement from 3.1% to 3.6% in conversion rate for a site with $50,000,000 annual sales will yield $8,060,000 extra sales every year.


Google Logo
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.
Sudeep Agarwal Growth Manager at Google Shopping

How Will the Audit Be Delivered?
What Will It Cost?

An annual full-site Travel Tours & Experience Booking desktop and mobile UX audit across all 7 audit focus areas costs $13,100 (USD) per year.

An annual Travel Tours & Experience Booking Website UX audit includes:

  • A full UX review and analysis by Baymard’s team of UX researchers of both your desktop and mobile websites.

  • 6 detailed UX performance scorecards with a total of 340+ review parameters, and with UX performance comparison against Sea Paradise, Extranomical Tours, Wild Rover Tours, Sea Saffron, Much Better Adventures, Ziptrek Ecotours, and Take Walks, along with a general comparison to 244 top-grossing US, European, and International e-commerce sites.

  • A 120+ page audit report with 40 prioritized suggestions for UX improvements. Each explain the identified UX issue, the suggested change, and show 2–4 best practice implementation examples from other Travel Tours & Experience Booking sites and leading e-commerce sites.

  • A 2-hour video conference with you and your team to discuss the audit results.

  • 12 follow-up calls with your UX auditor. Useful for follow-up questions or feedback on your redesigns or prototypes.

  • 12 months of complimentary access to a Baymard Premium ‘Specialty’ plan with full access to Baymard’s 130,000+ hours of UX research findings (normally $2600/year).

Reach out below to discuss your needs or request a UX audit of your Travel Tours & Experience Booking site. (PS client audits are strictly confidential and will not be included in Baymard’s public UX benchmark database).

Talk to UX auditor Laura about your goals and discuss Baymard’s UX research methodology.

Travel Tours & Experience Booking Audit Price

$13,100

per audit

  • Refund Policy: In the event that we’re unable to provide 40 suggestions for improvements we’ll still complete the audit and leave it up to you if you want a refund.

  • Lead time: A typical full site audit takes around 17-25 work days - depending on time of year, project scope and auditor availability.

  • Confidential: All client-specific audits and UX scorecards are strictly confidential; they are not included in Baymard’s public benchmark databases or shared with anyone else (NDA is possible).

  • Unbiased: As Baymard does not offer any kind of design or development services or sell e-commerce technology, the UX audit will always be a completely unbiased analysis of your site, and not an indirect “sales pitch” for other services. At Baymard our specialization is the UX audit.

What Our Clients Say About the UX Audit

Carnival Cruise Lines Logo
We like what we are reviewing from the audit - great analysis and feedback.
David Polanco UX Lead at Carnival Cruise Lines
Etsy Logo
Thank you. This was an excellent piece of work: professional, thorough, and actionable for the team. We’re very happy with the work Baymard has done for us.
Alex Wright Director of Research at Etsy
Nike Inc. Logo
Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.
Will Close Director of A/B Testing at Nike.com
Google Logo
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.
Sudeep Agarwal Growth Manager at Google Shopping
John Lewis Logo
The Baymard team has been a delight to work with on the JohnLewis digital platform audit. They responded to the brief very well, have been very accessible for ongoing clarification and queries and Rebecca was excellent in the recent team share, articulately presenting findings in an engaging walk-through with the wider team which will really support driving engagement and a robust response. Many thanks for all the effort and focus folks.
Greg Woods UX & UI Design and Research Manager at John Lewis
Jarden Consumer Solutions Logo
Thanks for everything. The audit was extremely useful, I think we have gained valuable insight.
Tara Costa Senior Manager at Jarden Consumer Solutions (FoodSaver, Breville, etc.)
Nutrisystem Logo
The recommendations in our audit were awesome - well prioritized, actionable and helped us focus on what to optimize. This audit, along with the e-Commerce Reports & Benchmark Databases, are my go-to resources for thorough, insightful information. Thank you!
Erin Straub UX Design Manager at Nutrisystem
Sears Logo
Baymard produces some of the most relevant and actionable user experience research available. They really understand the needs of UX and Product Management professionals, and their deep experience in the eCommerce field allows them to offer sophisticated, nuanced insights.
Kerry McAleer Former Director of UX Research at Sears
Overstock Inc. Logo
Thanks again for the great work on our checkout project. Our whole group found it incredibly insightful. We’re applying the suggestions you provided to our new checkout design which launches at the end of the month! One of my colleagues was also interested in your group’s competitive expertise with regard to responsive web and native apps.
Jaime Wilson Sr. Director of Design & Development at Overstock.com
Harley-Davidson Logo
We found the audits extremely helpful and validated a number of changes we have been wanting to make or are in the process of making, so thank again for all the great insights.
Colleen Kersting eCommerce Marketing at Harley-Davidson
Instacart Logo
Thank you, this was really insightful!
Andrew Wright Product Design Manager at Instacart
Columbia Sportswear Logo
This was indeed very helpful guidance and a very well-documented roadmap for us to fix, validate, organize, collectively understand and continually improve our ecommerce foundation.
Cat Brunson UX Manager at Columbia Sportswear
B&H Photo & Electronics Corp. Logo
I can confirm that the list was fully implemented. Every time we put up a change we either A/B test or we watch it very closely to determine that it’s doing better and not the opposite. So I can confirm that these fixes have improved our checkout. Thanks for everything.
Abraham Berkowitz B&H Photo
Bell Canada Logo
Thank you for the UX audit presentation, it was FANTASTIC. People here are quite pleased and amazed by the amount of work that was put into this.
Marc Ulrich Associate Director of Web Usability at Bell Canada
T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom Logo
Thank you very much for the 7 usability audits of our country-specific sites. The audits have provided us with specific and actionable advice, allowed us to prioritize development resources, and enabled us to compare UX performance between the 7 different country-specific sites, and against State of the Art implementations. The audit itself is done really professionally, and the recommendations contain actionable and insightful information.
Mirko Sablic EU eTransformation at ​Deutsche Telekom / T-mobile
Shopify Logo
We’ve received some awesome feedback from our Merchant Success team as well as our merchants about all of the UX Audits we’ve had thus far with Baymard. Thank you so much to you and your team for all of your hard work. The pilot with Baymard has been going fantastic and I’m really excited with all that we’re learning! You have an amazing platform, team and super helpful data base for us to work with.
Nicole Papp Merchant Success Manager, Shopify
Avast Logo
We have recently tested some of your recommendations for the Avast checkout and got some great wins!
Tomas Janu E-Commerce Director at Avast
GE Healthcare Logo
I’m reviewing the report this morning and I am delighted. The recommendations are detailed and our resulting actions are clear. I’m excited to share this with the rest of the team!
Donal Phipps Digital Marketing Leader at GE Healthcare
Best Secret Logo
We are very excited to finally proceed with the UX improvements, and I truly believe your audit report will be super helpful to put us ahead of the wave. If you ever need a reference, please do not hesitate to share my contact.
Marian Gradl-Schikora Managing Director at Best Secret
Hallmark Cards, Inc. Logo
The walkthrough today was great. The report was very, very well done and loaded with great opportunities for us to improve our business. I wanted to again express my appreciation for working with us on such a condensed time frame last month. You and your team have been amazing partners to us and we very much appreciate the work, expertise and partnership.
Wendy Bonnstetter UX Director at Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Capital One Logo
I wanted to begin by saying how incredibly impressed I have been with the degree/depth of content shared on UX/UI best practices for eCommerce experiences. This has by far been one of the most valuable workshops I have ever attended in my professional career.
Geoffrey Laux Digital Product Owner at Capital One
Office Depot Logo
Baymard has been a great resource in helping us improve the customer experience. We are continually applying these best practices to our sites.
Bryan Trogdon Director of User Experience at Office Depot
Fast Growing Trees Logo
We implemented this [1 of the 15 audit suggestions] and since then we’ve had a 20% increase in warranties added and a pretty healthy average order increase because of that. That was a great suggestion, it hit our bottom line immediately.
Justin French Director of E-commerce at Fast Growing Trees
Altitude Sports Logo
Let me say that it was exceptionally well done, and we are super excited to implement every one of the recommendations there. Everything you said has usually been a case of discussion in the past, but having them recommended in a deck like this will allow us to move forward.
Louis Parizeau VP of Marketing at Altitude Sports
RepairClinic.com Logo
Within a very short time Baymard Institute provided 15 clear, useful improvement suggestions for our checkout process. We intend to implement all of them. It’s easy to find companies that offer website improvement suggestions. But, most companies don’t do their homework and don’t provide specific examples of how best to make the improvements. With Baymard Institute, the checkout process suggestions they made were intuitive, specific, and actionable. I highly recommend their audit service.
Chris Hall President of RepairClinic.com
StickerMule.com Logo
Wow, this is great! Just reviewed it with the team. It’s a huge help and we’re excited to fix these issues.
Anthony Thomas UX responsible at StickerMule.com
n11.com Logo
We have worked with a number of third party companies before on various projects/audits, and I can certainly say that working with Baymard was not only a pleasure; but you delivered on time; to the level of depth we wanted; addressing important issues; and answering all our questions; and you did all this for a great price. A big THANK YOU on behalf of N11.
Efe Yaman Program Manager at n11.com
prAna Logo
Wanted to thank you again for the checkout audit and walking us through the process. It was super helpful and we can’t wait to apply the changes to our checkout for a better user experience.
Ramona Rejali Senior UX Designer at prAna
Microchip Logo
A great presentation, and the results were very eye-opening. It’s really helpful.
Tiziana Collova e-Commerce Marketing Specialist at Microchip
Epicenter Consulting Logo
Given the tricky science of conversion rate optimization, it is great to know that you are dealing with professionals whose advice is based on solid research. It was a pleasure collaborating with the Baymard team.
Aaron Henig Operations Manager at Epicenter Consulting, New York
SiteOne Landscape Supply Logo
Baymard recently did a UX audit of our new e-commerce Website. We were very pleased with the results. The report and live review of the findings validated our approach to user experience, and also, we learned a lot about best practices for e-commerce UX. We believe Baymard’s work will help us increase revenue and user satisfaction.
Colleen Romero Digital Marketing Director at SiteOne Landscape Supply
Zenbooth Logo
I just wanted to thank you guys for all of the time that you’ve put into this, and for a great presentation. We don’t have anyone at the company that has formal UX/UI experience, so being able to tap into Baymard’s resources/expertise is an immediate win for us. Some of the things you pointed out, we’ve already identified as areas for improvement (which was validating), but a lot of the recommendations are things that we hadn’t identified and are for the most part immediately actionable.
Mischa Szymanski Marketing Coordinator at Zenbooth
Anodyne Logo
I’m very impressed! Not about our site’s performance, quite the opposite, but about your work. Very detailed and packed with great and tangible advice. This was exactly what I dreamt about, but sometimes you just have to be careful dreaming.
Kenneth Avnsted CEO at Anodyne
Ace Hardware Logo
A big thanks to you and the Baymard team for such an informative and valuable session. The Ace Hardware team truly appreciated the Baymard teams feedback, diligence and the overall presentation. We are looking forward to using the excellent information provided to improve the acehardware.com user journey.
Lexy Cascone Marketing Manager UX/UI at Ace Hardware
V-ZUG Logo
Thanks for this audit and your good work. This was exactly what I was aiming for. Also thanks for the very, very professional presentation, and answering all our countless questions. Very good work.
Andreas Blank Head of E-Commerce at V-ZUG
Ōura Ring Logo
First off, thank you. This was the most engrossed I’ve ever been in a 2-hour meeting. This [audit presentation] was incredibly insightful and very helpful. Many, many thanks.
Yvonne Kim Head of E-Commerce at Ōura Ring
Joybird Logo
[Wanted to] say thanks, because we had a meeting yesterday everyone’s really excited about this. It’s really got everyone motivated and interested in what we’re going to tackle next so it’s been really invaluable, I think.
Phil Losty QA Manager at Joybird
Hibbett Logo
This has been fantastic: really good recommendations, really comprehensive.
Bill Quinn SVP Digital at Hibbett
Party City Logo
This is awesome so far. Everyone wants to know what's going on – you just got everyone's attention here. Everything that you've called out is definitely eye-opening for us over here.
Arthi Karthik VP Ecommerce at Party City
TaylorMade Logo
I was able to bring these designed solutions home with me and kickoff multiple optimization projects that I am confident will affect the site in a positive way, both in usability and conversion.
Nick Frame Lead UX Designer at TaylorMade
On Running Logo
Very thorough and professional UX review of our website, based on an extensive amount of previous UX research insights within the industry, and specifically targeted to our needs. We received both critical and, most importantly, constructive feedback, along with actionable, prioritized suggestions and best-practice examples. This will allow us to address the areas of improvement and significantly help ameliorate the experience users have on our website, which in turn is expected to drive conversion rates and reduce the number of customer service requests. We can highly recommend Baymard's UX audit.
Julia Fink UX Researcher at On Running
AB InBev Logo
I found the UX audit a very comprehensive evaluation, with clear reports and actionable recommendations. Baymard's commitment to excellence in user experience shines through its thorough approach!
Giulia Moliterno Product Designer at AB InBev
Shutterstock Logo
This UX audit has been very helpful, not just for our design and product teams, but even for the UX research team, because we can reference back to the audit, either in the design of a user research session or when we analyze findings. Thank you very much; this has been incredibly valuable.
Heather Vaughn Senior Director of User Research at Shutterstock