The power of the Apple App Store and, to a lesser extent, the Android Market, has inspired travel companies such as Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Sabre to create apps' markets of their own to suit their own purposes.
It is very early days for the Sabre Red Apps Centre and it has already been noted that there is much to prove as far as attracting new apps from third-party developers.
But, CWT Market, which has been available in France since March 2011 and went global soon thereafter, now has a year-old track record to draw on.
CWT Market, geared toward business travelers and not necessarily customers of the travel management company, curates and aggregates about two dozen apps, ranging from CWT's own itinerary management service, CWT To Go, to Earthquake Alert and FlightBoard, among others.
But, CWT Market, which is available as a free download in iTunes, Google Play (formerly known as the Android Market) and BlackBerry App World, as of January 2012 had "registered nearly 15,000 total unique users," a CWT spokesperson says.
That amounts to a scant 1,365 registered users per month for CWT Market (shown above). (Notice that in the above iTunes screenshots of the CWT Market app, the branding is all about CWT's proprietary CWT To Go app rather than an image emphasizing curation of non-CWT apps for business travelers.)
And, the aggregation app isn't exactly setting the world on fire, judging from the user reviews.
On Google Play, CWT Market gets a 2.4 rating out of a possible 5 stars based on 36 reviews. And, more than half of these reviews give the app just a 1-star rating.
"Useless" and "Total Junk" headline a couple of the reviews, which characterize CWT Market as a "glorified folder" taking up a lot of memory and note that it just points to other travel apps available for downloading elsewhere.
On iTunes, CWT Market got 3 stars based on just 11 user ratings.
The most popular app in CWT Market is CWT To Go, which heads the list of apps and has an 8% share of downloads, the CWT spokesperson says. Coming in #2 and #3 are Best Alarm Clock (5%) and Taxi Magic (4%), respectively.
Henry Harteveldt, chief researcher and co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group, says CWT probably had good intentions in creating CWT Market, in tandem with developer Pilkington Bedwell, "but may have simply misread the market."
Perhaps the app really does not create enough value for business travelers, Harteveldt says.
"The challenge for corporate travelers is less about whether my flight is on time, airport parking or the closest Starbucks, and it is more about, 'can I access the corporate booking tool and manage the reservation that I have,'" Harteveldt says.
Along those lines, the CWT To Go app, which provides CWT clients with access to their travel itineraries and destination information, became available on a variety of smartphone platforms in September 2011 and had 26,000 active users through March 11, 2012, the spokesperson says.
Like CWT Market, those numbers for CWT To Go don't seem earth-shattering, considering CWT's wide reach in 150 countries and territories.
It wouldn't be surprising to find out that a great number of CWT customers are using apps from rivals such as TripIt or WorldMate.
Developed by Rearden Commerce, CWT To Go is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
The CWT spokesperson adds: "CWT will continue to enhance the CWT To Go app, providing travelers and travel managers with solutions to increase their efficiencies."