Assessing the mobile situation - then, now and in the future
Published: 16 Jul 2008
Mobile Technology in Travel@WTM 2008 Conference
Over the last week, a spate of new developments related to mobile web services, be it for flight schedules and fares or destination and airport information or local activities and weather forecasts have been announced.
Several of these developments have coincided with the launch of the new iPhone 3G.
These include travel community TripAdvisor introducing a new version of its Local Picks restaurant finder to complement the launch of Apple's new App Store. The Local Picks application, utilising the iPhone's location-based capabilities, will allow people to find the best restaurants, as rated by locals, based on their current location. TripAdvisor is also incorporating filters into the application that will allow searches to be conducted by rating, radius and price.
Among others, Handy Group has introduced a new icon driven interface to coincide with the launch of the new iPhone 3G. The mobile technology company's solution will allow users to navigate using touch sensitive icons and will be available for use on all the latest handsets using touch screen technology.
From an online travel agency's perspective, Travelocity has launched a new native application that offers iPhone and iPod touch users an innovative set of travel features while they are on the road. The new application, TravelTools, includes a new location-based feature called "Hotels Near Me" which provides a dynamic list of nearby hotels, with links to maps, hotel descriptions, and booking options. iPhone and iPod touch users away from home can also manage their itineraries booked on Travelocity, as well as get information on flight status and TSA security checkpoint wait times.
In UK, Travel Buddy, a mobile communication company, has secured a mobile deal with five tourist boards covering England's Northwest. Led by Visit Chester and Cheshire and supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) the partnership includes coverage in Merseyside, Cumbria, Cheshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Visitors can now register for the Travel Buddy service on vistitlancashire.com, visitblackpool.com, visitcheshire.com, visitchester.com, visitmanchester.com, visitliverpool.com and golakes.co.uk.
The deal will see Travel Buddy provide visitors with keywords that can be text to a shortcode (short mobile number) to receive local activities, events, restaurants, clubs and weather forecasts on their mobile.
In Australia, Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd. (MTT) has implemented a range of mobile web services for Australia and Asia Pacific low-cost airline Jetstar (Qantas Group). At launch, the site will make available flight schedules, fares, plus destination and airport information for all mobile phone users whilst they are away from their PC or on the move. The site and services can be viewed using jetstar.com on a mobile device or on a PC. Jetstar Mobile is accessible from over 3,000 mobile devices from iPhone and PDAs down to standard feature phones.
Considering the pace of developments, it is quite clear that be it travel suppliers or mobile travel technology companies, the industry is aggressively targeting mobile Internet customers for information/ utility or reservation services.
The technology already identifies the phone type and select the best possible user interface for each individual handset.
For its part, EyeforTravel is scheduled to conduct Mobile Technology in Travel@WTM 2008 Conference in London (On 11th November). The speakers list includes Chris Carmichael, Innovation and Planning, BA.
For more information, click here: www.eyefortravel.com/wtm/mobile
Or
contact:
Tom Ellum, Conference Director
+44 (0)207 375 7236
tom@eyefortravel.com
Comments
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Justin Baker said on 30 Sep 08:
Hi
Great to hear about the travel industry going mobile friendly. Mobile is certainly becoming a popular way to access the web thesedays and is only now really getting in to gear for e-commerce. Travel will be a big winner because its such a natural bedfellow with mobile surely!
Thought I might make a quick comment then about a service called Mippin, which also takes a lot of the sting out of creating a mobile edition of travel and information blogs. Mippin offers a mobilizing tool called Mippin Mobilizer, which very quickly creates a mobile format of a blog, providing branding / customisation tools alongside the opportunity to generate advertising revenue when the site is published in to the mobile edition. When this happens, the blog appears within a mobile site called Mippin (URL is http://mippin.com on mobile phone browsers) and there will be plenty of new readers for your blog.
There's some great travel content in there now and its growing and growing. With one of the largest audiences in mobile across the UK and USA, its definitely worth a look if anyone already runs a travel / information or promtional blog of any kind.
To use the Mobilizer tool to publish a blog to the Mippin mobile site, go to www.mippin.com/mobilizer on your PC and enter your blog URL to see a live demo and to start customising.
Glocal said on 17 Jul 08:
Travel is "per sé" mobile, isn't? ...
tromba said on 16 Jul 08:
This is an encouraging news article. For the past decade or so, there have been a number of efforts to apply wireless and other handheld device technologies to the travel and tourism industries. Many of these efforts failed, not necessarily because of poor design or bad management, but rather because the timing wasn't right and the market simply wasn't ready.
But now, the early failures are serving a purpose by showing what not to do and where not to go.
Clearly, mobile will become a major factor in travel -- if not this year, then next year.
The innovative companies mentioned in this article should be applauded -- and watched closely by the competition.