Bums on seats and heads on beds may be the be all and end all for airlines and hotels, but with rising numbers of travellers using smart phones while on the move, that isn’t really good enough. Pamela Whitby finds out why

“If I close my eyes and open them again, I have no way of knowing whether I am on an Air France, KLM or British Airways plane,” says Jeroen van Velzen, the chief executive of mobile technology solution company Sound of Data. “And the same is true for most hotels and car hire firms.”

In this highly commoditised environment, where many customers feel that travel firms just don’t care, this presents a huge opportunity. According to van Velzen, those players that are able to deliver something truly different, those that have truly understood the travel experience will be the winners.  “The younger generation is craving a different experience. They want an experience to remember rather than a fast food travel experience where every hotel reception or bedroom looks the same,” he says.  For van Velzen this is why the likes of Airbnb are succeeding today; it has understood that the traveller wants more than just a bland room in a hotel that looks like every other.

Besides ‘the physical experience’ the challenge for travel suppliers today is to really understand the customer before, during and after the trip, and then deliver them exactly what they want or need. This is possible today because of the mobile phone and because of the amount of data firms have access to. However, what van Velzen finds striking – and worrying - is that very few travel companies even have a customer relationship management solution in place. 

Adding value

The traveller meets a company at many different digital touch points but it is up to the supplier to carefully gather that data and then create detailed customer profiles. Of course, one customer may have different travel personas depending on whether they are travelling for business or pleasure. “This is the really complicated big data stuff and many B2B players haven’t even started venturing into this space,” says van Velzen. When he is on his various travels, this annoys him. “If you know that you I am staying at your hotel and you know that I am arriving by plane, then why don’t you send me a welcome message explaining the best route to get there?” he asks, adding that 99 out of a 100 big hotel chains don’t use the information they have to improve the customer experience.

In the B2C space the story is a little different and van Velzen points to Facebook, Google (which is playing some “big cards”), Priceline and Airbnb as firms that understand where the market is heading. “Priceline is doing a great job in understanding what the power of mobile as a booking channel is and have created a platform that is purposeful and targeted,” he says.  “They have really understood the consumer booking experience. Airbnb, on the other hand, has understood that the new generation of traveller wants an experience to remember.”

For traditional travel firms, van Velzen stresses that now is the time to get on the phone and start communicating with the customer while they are on the go.

In other words, take the booking and create a mobile experience  – that is the most basic level. The next step is to engage them by providing solutions like offline mapping, or adding value to points of interest. The final step will be to facilitate local transactions.

Playing the movie director

So what are the opportunities in the B2B space? According to van Velzen, the new winner in this game will be the one that understands the travel experience, and the most likely candidates will be the intermediaries which can play a really vital role in linking the silos that are the airline and hotel players.  However, for the intermediary to do that, they too must understand that the traveller is looking for more than a booking experience, they want travel experience. The mobile phone has a central role to play in this, which explains why Expedia acquired Mobiata, CWT acquired Worldmate and Concur bought Tripit.

“Agencies have a movie director functionality role in the industry so that they can guide their customer beyond the booking and then take care of them once they are travelling using mobile technology,” he says. “This is the biggest investment firms can make today.” 

Sound of Data’s mobile itinerary management technology is currently used worldwide by over a million travellers per month and is focused exclusively on delivering a better travel experience. Right now it sells solutions to online travel agents as well as business travel agencies. It also partnered with travel distribution firm Amadeus to create m-Power: a mobile travel agency solution that combines the booking capability from Amadeus with the Itinerary Management platform from Sound of Data. The technology allows the customer to book through an agency (mobile, off- and online) and then 24 hours before the trip they will receive a text message with a personal encrypted itinerary page branded by the supplier. If the customer has a mobile phone for which an app is available then the supplier will encourage the user to download it for a much richer user experience and flight and hotel booking capabilities. Future services will include additional capabilities for offline mapping, pointers to places of interest and in-trip transactions. 

Jeroen van Velzen, the chief executive of mobile technology solution company Sound of Data is speaker and sponsor at the EyeforTravel Travel Distribution Summit, Europe which takes place in London later this week.