Mobile Travel in Europe
ACCOR, the global hotel chain, just launched an iPhone application.
This is just one of the many examples of travel brands leveraging the mobile momentum. Airline companies have always been at the vanguard of integrating mobile into their strategies, but it looks like many other travel brands from hotel chains, airports, rail companies, car rental companies, and travel-related brands (from Lonely Planet to luxury brands) are now tapping into existing mobile opportunities and building mobile products that meet burgeoning customer demand.
Travel is indeed inherently mobile. Now that the promise of location-enhanced services is beginning to be fulfilled on mobile phones, travelers are starting to use their devices as personal travel assistants. More than 10% of European Internet travelers use their mobile phones to look up flight or train schedules. Frequent business travelers are the ideal target group, as they are more likely to be regular users of the mobile Internet and are more likely to spend while traveling. More than 30% of them are interested in booking train tickets or checking in for a flight via their mobile phones.
If you want more information on this topic, see this brand new report available here. If you're working in the travel industry, you're likely to know my colleague Henry Harteveldt. But if you don't, I would suggest you follow his research. He contributed to this report and can give you the overall picture and share insights on how to integrate mobile into a multichannel strategy.