Four Seasons Mobile site
A new report by the Boston Consulting Group and Facebook found that travel companies are inadequately embracing mobile.
Consumers are rapidly turning to mobile for various purposes and hotels and travel agencies without a viable mobile presence will continue to miss out on this shifting behavior. The "Travel Goes Mobile" report explores how early mobile adopters are sprinting ahead while stragglers are doing just that.
"Adoption rates on apps are really low relative to the online penetration rates of some of the heavyweights," David Fondiller, director of public relations and communications, New York.
"Only a few traditional travel players have made great strides, while many are still trying to define a clear digital path on mobile," he said.
"By contrast, more pure-play mobile travel entrants are developing a clear advantage with superior and simple mobile offerings."
The "Travel Goes Mobile" report can be viewed here.
Answer the door
The report argues that a personalized service and experience is the biggest opportunity for travel companies. Not only do mobile applications help consumers, but they also generate lots of data pertaining to time of use, searches, spending and preferences.
The more data that is accrued through mobile, the better travel companies will be at personalizing services.
Furthermore, the data gathered can help brands understand the trends within demographics.
The report encourages companies to team up with mobile "gatekeepers" such as device manufacturers and social networks such as Facebook or Google that can help them accumulate as much data as possible.
For travel companies that enter the mobile space, apps should engage consumers at many points of the travel journey and be simple enough to outweigh the advantages of mobile Web.
"There are two main areas [that require improvement]: distribution and functionality/design," Mr. Fondiller said. "On distribution, the race is on and it’s important to be at the top of the heap when consumers are deciding which app will be their primary point of engagement.
"On functionality/design, the pace of innovation is rapid," he said. "Those who are making things intuitive, reducing friction, and leveraging the best practices of others (not just of travel players) will create a killer experience and drive adoption.
"Travel companies need to drive downloads with aggressive moves and find a few simple elements of the mobile offer to get right vs. trying to over-complicate a format that lends itself to simplicity and speed."
Flip side
On the other hand, hotel brands stand to benefit from this gap by presenting consumers with apps and mobile sites that streamline the travel process, provide research insights about what to do and offer ways to connect with on-site personnel.
For instance, Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest is letting prospective guests explore the property beforehand with a 360-degree immersive application.
FS Budapest app
The Room360 app uses spherical filming technology for relatively seamless tours of the property’s interior. As consumers continue to increase the amount of research they do prior to a trip, brands will have to meet the demand with similar apps and content (see story).
Brands do have the opportunity to deploy similar apps across their portfolio, since downloading app after app can be frustrating.
However, many brands are getting beat out by online travel agencies that continue to command top numbers on search engines.
Luxury hotel brands are ramping up mobile investments to regain sales lost to online travel agencies, according to L2's latest report.
According to Business Insider, OTAs account for 64 percent of mobile hotel bookings, and are poised to maintain their advantage. Consumers prefer to book via mobile sites and 50 percent of United States brand mobile sites require six or more clicks to book, a lengthy process that often leads to aborted transactions (see story).
"From the consumer perspective, your mobile device is essentially an extension of you," said Taylor Rains, Charleston-based luxury brand consultant. "People have come to expect mobile functionality from the brands they interact with on a daily basis. Be it a dedicated app or a strong mobile site.
"It's essential for hotel brands to have as strong a mobile presence as standard consumer brands, because that's what consumers expect," he said.
"For hotel brands, mobile also opens up the opportunity for prolonged communication with their audience. Increasing the frequency of exposure is always hugely beneficial for any brand, especially in industries like travel and tourism."
Final Take
Joe McCarthy, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York