iBeacon, new technology for event management and trade show?

iBeacon is one type of Location aware technology, it is Apple Trademark for implementation of Low-power Bluetooth technology (BLE), as known as Bluetooth Smart to notify nearby iOS 7 devices of their presence. BLE can also be find Bluetooth 4.0 devices that compatible with dual-mode, including Android and Windows devices.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwnmx-5mBLM

How Event Marketers and can put beacons to use:

Gamification

Nowadays, gamnification plans a crucial role in creating brand awareness while offering enhanced visitor interaction. Enabled by the location awareness of the application, the user can influence their devices to receive entertainment massage signal with every visit to the application. Each status will have its own real-world version. For example, at Consume Electronics (CES) 2014, the iBeacon application encourage delegates to explore the important exhibits at the trade show, and attendees can collect badges from each beacon to won the prize.

Improved networking

Networking is one of the important reasons for people attend events. iBeacon have benefit for event to improve the networking services. The application can provide visitor self-tagging or LinkedIn integration to receive notifications, they can also offer guided tour of the event arena based on the interests of the user. For instance, if attendees want to know more about the mobile commerce or relevant stalls at the event, they can easily get the information on iBeacon and help them connect and exchange contact details.

Frictionless Registration

During the trade show, convention or a concerts, one of the most annoying things for attendees is the extensive registration queues, which would have a great impact on attendees’ overall experience and event’s image. However, today, iBeacon is used by many an organizers to accelerate the registration process of the event, they just need to install a small pieces of hardware at the entrance which is to send greeting notification with check-in information like QR code to their attendees’ electronic devices for a fast-speed check-in. This kind of check-in ways also support the new electronic devices like Apple watch.

Navigation and Heat Mapping

Another most confusing thing for attendees is to find the direction, which makes floor maps become one of the best uses of smartphone applications. However, iBeacons is always the best partner of floor map, in the venue of the event, iBeacon can tell the attendees their highly accurate location (including the floor) and indicate them to the place they want to go via application even though there is no Wi-Fi coverage and the GPS is inaccessible on-site. 

Moreover, it would be a great way to enhance the engagement during the event because users can set the notification when attendees walk by the session.

As iBeacon is connecting to the real-time statistics, it also could be used to monitor overcrowded or security issues by recognizing hotspots and alerts organizers.

  

To sum up, with various function of communication, data solving, iBeacons would be an essential part of any event’s and bring a great change to improving attendees’ experience.

If you have any other effective ideas about iBeacon, feel free to comment below!

Written by Pulin CHEN & Huishan LI

Sources:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-apple-ibeacon-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/using-beacons-event-experience#gj5xEkyBT8tmQEWE.97
http://blog.beaconstac.com/2014/08/how-beacons-can-transform-event-management-and-trade-shows/
https://attendease.com/blog/industry/i-beacons/

Apple watches: a new IT revolution on the tourism market or just one more gadget?

The new Apple watch just went out on 25^th april and it seems that tourism actors rely on this new product. Even if it is not an innovation as the same kind of product already exists on the market since more than 2 years, the brand fame can bring a positive change for the development of smart watches. Thomas Husson, vice-president of the Forrester Institute, estimates that about 10 million Apple watches will be sold in 2015.

An article of the French online newspaper “L’echo touristique” by Souen Léger, shows that the different sectors of the tourism industry want to benefit from this product in different ways and some big players already launched their application compatible with the Apple watch. 

You can now use the Apple Watch with different transport applications: voyage-sncf, airline companies such as American Airline or Air France but also Uber and Taxis G7. Hotel chains are also innovating. As an example Starwood makes it possible for the guest to open his door with the Apple watch. Accor also bets on the Apple watch to improve services and make all the information easily accessible to the customers. Even GDS are now on the trend as Sabre made its application Tripcase compatible with it. Finally users of the Apple Watch will be able to use geolocation in cities to orientate themselves, take transports but also use something as useful as Tripadvisor.

What if smart watches were the next revolution in the IT world? Until now it was nothing but a revolution. However Apple has shown its brand power through the years and its new product follows the same path than the previous launches in terms of design and elegance. As an Apple watch cannot be used without an iphone, some experts already question its real utility. However the target is the same than people having an iphone, in other terms people that can afford having an iphone could afford having an Apple watch. Having an Apple watch can become a fashion trend. If it gets the same success than the iphone, it will be sold in mass and tourism actors will be more and more willing to adapt their offer to this small feature. The possibilities brought by the product will increase and it will become more and more convenient to have one. We are not yet at this point and smart watches have to prove themselves.

Do big companies of the tourism industries really choose to invest on this new product only because its functionalities enable to improve the customer comfort? It is quite questionable. I-watches are the perfect device to get even closer to the customer in a time when the big challenge for companies is DATA. If we take for example a guest hotel, smart watches could enable hotel chains to know their customers habits and behaviours much better. These data would enable to market better the offer to the customer and personalize it to finally make higher sales and increase the profit. What about privacy? Technologies evolve; our world change and we are getting more and more manipulated without knowing it. It would be useful to think critically before buying this kind of device. Will it be useful? Will it really make the difference? 

Laetitia BURET

Alexis BLOTTIERE

Sources:

http://www.tourmag.com/Le-tourisme-se-met-a-l-heure-de-l-Apple-Watch_a73632.html

http://www.etourisme-feng-shui.com/2014/09/15/iwatch-quels-grands-enjeux-pour-le-monde-du-voyage/

http://www.tourmag.com/Apple-Watch-opportunite-en-or-ou-en-toc-pour-le-tourisme_a72724.html

http://www.lechotouristique.com/article/tripadvisor-succombe-a-l-apple-watch,73970

http://www.lechotouristique.com/article/ces-entreprises-du-voyage-qui-parient-sur-l-apple-watch,74159

http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/internet-mobile/accor-apple-watch.shtml

How technology is changing the today’s airport /1

Looking on the web for recent technology’s trends influencing the Travel and Tourism industry you can found lot of useful articles and research papers. Taking a further insight at the airport sector, you can go to the SITA website and download for free their 2014 Airport IT trends survey, being SITA “the world's leading specialist in air transport communications and information technology” (source http://www.sita.aero/about-sita) as they said. This survey covers a good numbers of airports (the top 200 airport operators, 106 senior IT executives answering) in all the main world regions representing near half of the global passenger traffic. On it, you can find some well-known words like cloud services, geo-location, Wi-Fi 2.0, Near Field Communication, digital tags, wearables. Then you find a word “Beacon”, which, according to the survey, represents only the 3% of the current major programmes in these airports, but it leads to a really impressive number of initiatives (30%) that the same airports plan to have by 2017 (pilots or trials).

To get started with this buzzword you can read an insight paper on the SITA website, you can go to the Business Insider UK website where you find very recent articles on their growth and a FAQ section as well. You can also read an article on the Umbel blog website citing companies in airports/airlines industry that have trials in place or use Beacon Technology (Virgin Atlantic, London’s Heathrow Airport, Japan Airlines in Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, American Airlines in Dallas Airport) to some extent.

And after reading all of them, firstly you discover that half of the top 100 retailers in the U.S. have already tested beacons during 2014 and that the beacon installed base is expected to grow by triple-digit rates over the next few years (Insider UK’s article). And then, you find that the first airport in the world with a complete deployment of beacons is Miami International Airport, covering entrances, check-in, gate, baggage claim and valet parking zones throughout the Airport.

Beacons can be used in many situations where location and information about the customers can be used together to send relevant information to them, by the means of beacons installed at the main touch points: check-in, passport control, bag drop, departure gates, lounge area, baggage areas, parking areas, retails and stores. These last two seem to be the most revenue related ones (from the airport point of view) and here Beacons can enable a list of possible actions (redeeming targeted coupons, hands-free payment, earning points, picking up duty free items, etc.) that could to enhance the in-store shopping experience.

Now it comes clear why airports want to spend heavily on this technology as they can see a lot of benefits potentially coming from these little devices. Yes, they are little and they need very little energy and little amount of money to be bought !

....little but powerful !!!

Source http://estimote.com                                                   

Yet, they can scan for Bluetooth 4.0 devices (and they can trigger apps) on a much greater distance than NFC (70 meters is the advertised range, with some inaccuracy of +/- 5 meters, (SITA’s Insight Paper), and they can talk with both Android and IOS devices sending little bit of data to the apps installed on them (even if the app is not running – in the Apple scenario).

Summing up, beacons enable airports to connect with travelers, interact with them, collect data about their behavior and preferences, and change the overall traveler airport’s experience.

Is this only shining and positive? yes and ...no, as still there are some questions coming from the nature of airports as shared or common environment, such as: who will be responsible for the deployment of them or who can have access to them, once they have been installed? How to manage multiple beacons at once? And there are other questions about the main competitors in this arena (Samsung and Apple) which prefer to compete instead of collaborating, so ...a retailer who wants to adopt the beacon technology, theoretically, needs two set of beacons installed?

Stay tuned as the answers could come in the next few months.

Leonarda Miglietta and Nadya Levitskaya

Source

http://www.sita.aero/file/11978/Airport-IT-Trends-Survey-2014.pdf

http://www.sita.aero/file/10782/beacons-white-paper.pdf

https://www.umbel.com/blog/mobile/15-companies-using-beacon-technology/

http://www.businessinsider.com/beacons-are-the-most-important-new-retail-tech-2014-7?IR=T

http://skift.com/2014/09/24/miami-international-airport-makes-commitment-to-beacon-technology/