Mobile and Technology

by Ritesh Gupta Travel companies across the world have been actively engaged in developing their mobile initiatives as they increasingly look to put more services into the hands of their customers.

Published: 10 Jun 2010

by Ritesh Gupta

Travel companies across the world have been actively engaged in developing their mobile initiatives as they increasingly look to put more services into the hands of their customers.

However, in addition to service provision to travellers on the move, should travel companies consider a mobile commerce-enabled site as an additional revenue stream and make it a forward-looking element of their 2010 distribution strategy?

According to InterContinental Hotels, bookings – especially last minute bookings – along with pre stay planning and in market arrival can be natural fits for the mobile channel. IHG’s statistics show that roughly 70 percent of mobile web bookings are same day compared to 11 percent via the web. Customers who book that day utilise the convenience of “always on, always tethered” mobile devices with location based capabilities to ease the booking and pre stay experience.

From an airline’s perspective, Virgin Atlantic Airways’ manager - eBusiness strategy, Fergus Boyd says mobile is primarily about delivering service at the point of need in a customer’s journey.

“Selected selling opportunities will come later. Displaying offers via mobile would be useful but better to focus on click to call to pop customers to call centres rather than forcing then through 5-6 stage mobile booking funnels,” says Boyd. “Mobile re-booking makes more sense e.g. to allow users who are overseas to modify their return trip without needing to boot up a PC.”

Boyd said the airline isn’t selling via mobile currently, either seats or ancillary items and have no immediate plans to do so.

“This may come but only as a small part of a richer service-led proposition,” added Boyd.

From a hotelier’s perspective, Bill Keen, director of product development, IHG, says the experience will need to be tailored to shorten key transactional flows either through utilisation of key features of the phone - geo-location, mapping and integration with voice –better use of the content such as highlighting select key amenities that are important to last minute bookers, and integrating in profile data such as room preferences and credit card information. Keen is also clear that the mobile experience will not replace the deliberate planning process involved with something as important as an annual family holiday.

“The mobile experience is designed for a real-world context with lots of distractions. It is designed for somebody making a booking while waiting on a busy street corner or hurrying to figure out if a hotel room is available at the next subway stop,” said Keen.

Boyd pointed out that spontaneous on the day purchase may suit hotels and no frills carriers but the proposition is less clear for long haul flights that cost many hundreds of pounds and which require input from friends, family, price comparison research etc.

“Booking a £99 hotel room via mobile for an individual traveller is very different to booking a £999 long haul trip,” said Boyd, adding that the key items for mobile include relevance, usability, speed, reach, reliability.

Location, location, location

One in three queries on a mobile phone has local intent, indicating a powerful desire on the part of consumers for location-specific information.

Boyd says local content like weather, taxi prices, forex rates etc make sense for mobile but only as part of a wider service-based proposition. Few people want geo-tagged offers and ads pushed to them as they walk around a city.

“Apps have opened up new opportunities but they can also add costs and complexity to an airline’s digital offering,” says Boyd.

Nevertheless, according to Robert Hamilton, Project Manager, Mobile, Google, whilst it’s early days, there is enormous potential for travel businesses to upsell, improve check in services, sell post purchase ancillary add ons or give greater relevant information - all linked to location specific information.

Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2010

Fergus Boyd, Bill Keen and Robert Hamilton are all scheduled to speak at this year’s Travel Distribution Summit Europe, taking place on 17-18 June in London.

With a strong focus on mobile, the two-day event will feature over 100 speakers, from leading brands including Expedia, Google, Priceline, Kuoni, lastminute.com, British Airways, TUI, Nokia, Facebook and more.

For more information, click here

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Simon Carkeek
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simon@eyefortravel.com