Mobile Phones in the Travel Sector

Mobile Phones in the Travel Sector

M-tourism which refers to Mobile-tourism now plays a key role in the tourism sector and its importance and market potentials are now being fully awared of by tourism practitioners. Indeed, Mobile phones’ use in travel industry is no longer an emergent phenomenon as more and more people now are turning to their cell phones to search for travel information as well as to plan or even book their travels. As a result, the industry is working on different ways to devise an optimal mobile phone strategy by mainly focusing on budgeting and planning for mobile website/Apps enhancements and mobile marketing initiatives.

In terms of mobile website/Apps enhancements, the idea is to focus on the customer exp

erience instead of basic website/Apps. For example, Sound of data, a Rotterdam-based company recently, is working in conjunction with CheapTickets.nl, introduced the online travel company’s iPhone application. The most important decision was to concentrate on the customer experience rather than creating a full Mobile OTA App in which the company would sell flight, hotel and cars’ inventory. This resulted in a “My Cheaptickets” service offering with a branded itinerary manager with real-time flight updates as the most important item.

With rapid advancements in mobile technology, the lines between mobile apps and mobile websites are disappearing. Newer, more sophisticated mobile devices, mobile operating systems and mobile browsers have enhanced the quality of the mobile web browsing experience tremendously.

Hotel companies plan to test and build out more capability related to mobile marketing inclusive of ad serving across networks and within their owned media with a focus on location aware targeting, using of QR codes and SMS for acquisition and potentially some carrier based solutions.

Kerry Kennedy, VP e-Commerce, Omni Hotels, says, “I believe these are interesting projects to add to the mix of an overall comprehensive mobile marketing strategy. I think that it is important for hotels to consider the key reasons guests book from a particular brand and enhance their mobile sites with functionality that leverage those reasons to keep the guest coming back to the site as well as present the brand voice the customer has come to expect.”

According to Kennedy, emergent marketing channels like QR codes and SMS need to fit the larger overarching strategy of the four marketing P’s (product, place, price, promotion) for a brand while doing so in the new digital channels.

Print media is still expensive, not measurable enough, and not profitable enough. Too many small local businesses never even took full advantage of using the internet to connect with customers, but if there was a steady stream of tourists it often didn't matter. But now with more competition and less people traveling, it is wise to stop spending money on print ads and flyers that visitors never see or just throw away and pay pennies a click to reach them on the smart phones they won't leave home without.

Businesses in tourism industry can use mobile marketing at a low price to directly reach potential visitors and bypass the numerous travel sites which can take commissions. They can easily provide value and earn the loyalty of their clients before they even meet, the potential to get creative with this is great because this method is still in its infancy and whoever gets in now is going to do very well.

Article Source: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/hotels/mobile-phones-travel-sector-learning-execution-and-feedback

Picture source: http://about.intermaps.com/produkte/?langswitch_lang=en

http://www.mobimento.com/en/mobile-marketing.php