FastBooking introduces its first mobile booking application

Published: 03 Nov 2009

FastBooking has initiated the deployment of its mobile hotel booking strategy with the development of a native application for the Apple iPhone.

The FastBooking iPhone app can be downloaded immediately, free-of-charge from the iTunes store.

FastBooking will roll out its mobile strategy during 2010 with hotel booking applications for the most popular mobile platforms as well as telecom operators.

The company has built its first mobile booking application specifically for the iPhone to make the most of the technological and ergonomic advantages the platform offers: the intuitive interface, swiping and tapping features, and performance speed.

According to the company, in addition to the speed and ease-of-use that marks a native application, the FastBooking mobile booking tool responds to user demands with a number of additional unique features:

Which hotels are closest to where I am right now? The FastBooking iPhone app uses sophisticated GPS functions to locate all nearby hotels and show them using location pins on a street map. Any location pin can be tapped to see the hotel name and address.

Let’s see what the hotel looks like. Research shows that customers are more likely to make a reservation if they can see the property before booking. Users simply swipe photos to see the hotel’s rooms, restaurant, lobby, spa and pool, and other amenities.

What else is in the area? Google Maps is built directly into the FastBooking mobile application. The user doesn’t leave the booking process to see the street map or satellite image of the hotel’s location.

Thank goodness I don’t have to fill in that form. Information fields like the user’s name, address, phone number and email are automatically filled in based on their iPhone address book saving tedious and repetitive keyboarding. All payment information (credit card numbers, etc) is filled in by hand and handled via a secured section of the application.

Now how do I get there? Once the user reserves the hotel, the application automatically plans the route to get him there from his current location.

Comments

Kilgore said on 5 Nov 09:

Three cheers for FastBooking. Mobile applications in travel and tourism has had a very long gestation, but it now arriving and will soon grow faster than any of us can imagine. The spark that is starting this prairie fire is the Apple iPhone, but there will be many competitors -- most likely some very smart devices that are now being tested quietly by engineers.

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