Go Mobile Now, Say Consumer Tech Experts

Many travel sellers have dabbled with mobile technology, but trends show that becoming more accessible on phones and tablets will be critical in the near future.

During a recent Eye For Travel webinar, representatives from top consumer travel sites said investing in mobile apps may soon be a fundamental course of action across the travel industry.

At TripAdvisor, which by its own estimate is the world’s biggest travel site, 15% of revenue now comes from mobile, said Rory Kenny, director of mobile partnerships for EMEA.

“What mobile and tablets have done to reshape our business is to open up the inspiration and on-the-trip parts of the trip,” said Kenny, who noted that TripAdvisor’s desktop sites now attract 260 million unique visitors annually.

And mobile will become ever-more important, especially in countries like the U.S. where the mobile penetration rate is more than over 100% (i.e. there are more phones in the country than people).

Go native
One major sticking point for mobile users is the cost of accessing destination information via wireless data networks while traveling.

“Maps are a huge mobile-use case; navigation is key to a traveler’s good experience in any city,” said Kenny. Travel companies should consider building native mobile apps, which do not require Internet access to function, he suggested.

“Native solves a few problems, like the roaming problem. The key pain point for use abroad is they can’t afford to turn on data; it’s too expensive.”

Invest in the future
For travel sellers, as booking larger transactions on tablets and phones becomes normal for consumers, mobile will become a vital space in which to engage with potential customers.

“If you’re selling big travel decisions, mobile is a good place to sell to your clients,” said Kenny. “Having a mobile website is [also] crucial for discovery,” he said.

It’s also key to appealing to next generation customers. “All the traffic is going mobile. As soon as you go mobile, you are saying you’re a mobile brand, and all the millennials will really want to adopt your brand,” Kenny said.

But Kenny cautioned travel companies to look a few years down the line before investing in costly apps that will become outdated.

“Follow your customers – see what the trends are and try to solve those problems,” said Kenny.

Make it easy
Dave Scheine, director of international operations for Yelp, said mobile had prompted the company to rethink its original mission completely. More than 11 unique million devices access Yelp each month today, with over 62% of the company’s total searches coming from mobile devices.

“Think about what kind of features would work best on your phone [when considering an app],” said Scheine. “We generate many more photos from phones because it’s fun to take photos on a phone, for instance.”

Most important, however, is that your app provide value.

“It’s important to have a strong level of utility in your app or mobile website. Consumers need information very quickly, and on a mobile device it can be clunky to go through paragraphs of information.”