In quite a departure for the global online travel agency, Expedia's new mobile apps - known as version 3.0 - are trying to bring the visual travel itinerary to life.
Trip plans are now displayed with a visual-heavy design, presumably to aid easy navigation. The new app will automatically update the itinerary data using the user's location.
Users will also be able to share the itinerary using SMS or email.
Following details will be displayed in the visual itinerary:
- Flights: Confirmation code, airline, flight number, travel dates and times, gate information, flight status, departure and arrival, potential layover airports and paths between them.
- Hotels: Hotel address, contact information and location map.
- Car Rentals: Confirmation code, car rental company, contact numbers, pickup and drop-off date and time.
- Destination Services: Start date for each activity, the date the activity expires, number and name(s) of guests and a link to redeem vouchers, which provides barcodes for the activity.
John Kim, Senior VP, Global Products at Expedia says:
"Unlike other itinerary applications, we've built what travelers really want. We are giving them live access to the most up-to-date travel data and wrapped it in a beautiful experience.
"We're launching our itinerary in 30 countries and 16 languages; on Android and iOS; for both phones and tablets around the world simultaneously. This is our biggest mobile launch ever."
Also, Expedia claims its suite of mobile apps (iOS, Android and Windows platforms combined) have been downloaded 11 million times in 228 different countries.
This is a sizeable increase given that in mid-November 2012 the download number was a mere five million.