We live in an era in which devices are travellers personal assistants. Browsing, searching, booking hotels or flights are all happening through smartphones or tablets. According to tnooz article, in 2015 almost 47% of onlive travel research will be via smartphones rather than tablets.
Mobile industries like Apple, Samsung, HTC and Nokia have already introduced a new market trend called Phablets. Those are smartphones which screens have a size of a tablet. Oxford Dictionary defines a “Phablet” as a “smartphone having a screen which is intermediate in size between that of a typical smartphone and a tablet computer”. This new era of huge screens can directy influence tourism industry and especially hotels, when designing apps and mobile websites.
Huge screens have impacts both to customers and hotels. From customer’s point of view phablets give enough space to make booking process easier and more functional. Hotels can have clearer images and better quality since the screens are bigger.
Knowing the advantages for both customer and hotels, websites and apps have to be designed by considering different facts:
- Thumb reach
Studies by Hoober show that people mostly hold their phones onehanded using the thumb for interactions. This fact decreases the reaching zones of the thumb, meaning that all the buttons such us “book now” have to be placed in the so called “thumb zone”. Customers will be more likely to click on the button if it is placed within this area. A field study done by the University of Maryland shows that the class of users of travelers often use mobile phones with one hand because they correlate it to an activity such as walking or holding another item in their hand. Moreover, the study showed that the mid-device are is the easiest one to access and the movements are more difficult for right-handed users.
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| Two methods of holding a touchscreen phone with one hand http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/how-do-users-really-hold-mobile-devices.php |
- Quality of images
Bigger screens lead to better resolutions on the displays. Therefore hotels can show their property through high resolution images and give the customer a better feel about location and lifestyle. At the same time, hotel management has to be aware that poor quality images on their websites can be exposed through bigger screens. Updated images are a MUST!
- Loading time
High resolution images lead to a better quality of the website, but it also influences the loading time. Hotels must find a balance between the quality of the images on the website and the time it takes to download them. There is always the risk that the guest abandons the webpage because of the slow loading time.
- Adaptability of content
Bigger screens are essential for a better booking experience - hotels have more space to show their property with images and text. As the size of the screen changes from phone to phone - or even better - phablet to phablet, also the content has to be adapted. The classical webpage of the hotel provides all kind of information regarding room, activities and other policies, whereas the mobile version has to match the guest’s expected information on the screen - otherwise it would take the customer too long to find the information needed.
In conclusion, hotel industry is directly affected by this new IT product called phablet. Hotels should follow this new trend and adapt as fast as they can their websites and mobile booking apps. What is really important, is to renew their websites in a way that they could offer for example better image quality, easiness of navigation and functionality in bookings. Therefore they will be able to increase their sales, attract new customers and refresh brand awareness. In other words, phablets could be the new mean the hospitality industry could benefit from.
Sources:
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/how-do-users-really-hold-mobile-devices.php
http://www.tnooz.com/article/mobile-devices-hotels/
Karlson, A. K. et al.
(2006), Understanding Single-Handed Mobile Device Interaction, University of Maryland
retrieved from http://hcil.cs.umd.edu/trs/2006-02/2006-02.htm
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