Making Travel Arrangements via Smartphone

Improvements to the size and quality of smartphone displays plus better cellular network speeds have contributed to making the modern smartphone a true mobile Internet device. Today, mobile users are messaging, reading, updating social networks and playing games all from a pocket sized device which is thousands of times more powerful than the computers that took man to the moon.

The Growth of Mobile Purchases
As well as messaging and tweeting, mobile users are starting to make purchases, not from their desktop computers, but directly from their phones or tablets. Apple has popularised the purchase of content (apps, music, books) directly from a user’s iPhone or iPad. Amazon has done the same with their Kindle Fire and opened up its huge store of books, films and music to mobile users. Google is doing the same with the Google Play Store. Mobile users are also making purchases directly from within a device’s built-in browser.

source: Mobile Marketing Trends from the Millennial Media July 2012 S.M.A.R.T.™ Report

One area where consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices to make purchases is in the travel sector. Hotels, cars and airline tickets are all being bought online, directly from a mobile device. According to a recent survey by eMarketer, 16 million consumers are expected to book travel on smartphones in 2012. While more than double that amount does travel related research, again from a smart mobile device.

Just under one third of all travel related purchases made on a smartphone are for hotel rooms. Because of this, all the major online hotel booking companies have dedicated apps for iOS and Android. Similarly, nearly a quarter of all travel products purchased by smartphone are for car rentals and again the big companies, including Avis and Hertz RentACar, have dedicated apps.

Online Purchases Continue to Increase
It could be said that the late nineties and the earlier part of the new century saw consumer confidence grow in making online purchases from a desktop computer. Now during the second decade of this century, we are seeing consumers making the same purchases, but this time from mobile devices instead.

With the increasing use of mobile devices for everyday tasks, it is more important now than ever for companies in the travel arena to take advantage of this opportunity to reach new and existing customers. There’s no denying it – mobile is making great waves throughout almost every industry today.

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