Top Travel Sites Then and Now: How Usability Has Evolved in Travel

What did Expedia look like before the site and its peers turned the bricks and mortar travel agent industry on its head? And how did airlines connect with customers online when dial-up connections were the norm? It seems like another lifetime when these online travel sites broke onto the scene in the mid- to late- 1990s with their sometimes-brittle websites that more often resembled brochures than the next great industry.

Skift stepped into the Wayback Machine for a look at nearly two decades of online travel to get a sense of how major travel brands have evolved to meet the needs of their customers.

Web design has improved, but so has the understanding that travel brands have for why users are coming to their sites. Gone are the days when Sheraton wanted to tell you about the hotel company’s owner on the homepage, and gone are the days when Expedia needed to explain exactly what they do.

Click through the images, above, for a look at where these travel companies started online and where they are today.