NB: This is a guest article by Jason Taylor, VP of platform strategy at Usablenet.
The travel industry has found itself as the benchmark for mobile, with early adopters among business travelers driving the overall market forward for other verticals.
How travelers have embraced smartphones has influenced other sectors such as retail, healthcare, insurance, energy, and beyond.
Business travelers were the first to rely on their mobile phones to access the Internet for productivity purposes, and importantly, this demographic was also the first that could afford smartphones - with companies subsidizing the cost of best-in-class mobile devices to keep their employees productive while on the road.
The reality of business travelers using the mobile web in large numbers resulted in travel companies being the first to optimize specifically for the channel - with airlines to hotels to all companies in the travel ecosystem devoting significant resources to develop mobile sites and apps.
While the business traveler blazed the trail, the rest of the world quickly caught up.
Today, in large part thanks to the travel industry paving the way, it is hard to remember a time when consumers did not rely on their smartphones to book and manage travel reservations, research restaurants when on the ground in a new city, and even make purchases.
In fact, smartphones now represent an essential device for millions of consumers when it comes to productivity, entertainment, gaming, and more.
Important mobile milestones among travel companies
There are many notable travel companies that have consistently pushed the ball forward in terms of mobile innovation, with each step forward leading to a better customer experience for travelers and new ways for travel companies to more effectively separate themselves from competitors.
Among the numerous milestones travel companies have produced in mobile are as follows:
1. Mobile commerce
Amtrak, the US national passenger rail company, is a true mobile early adopter.
In June 2006, they became the first travel company to launch an optimized mobile site that offered transactions to all Internet-enabled mobile devices.
Today, consumers have come to expect all ecommerce companies to provide an optimized purchasing experience from mobile phones.
2. Reaching a global mobile audience
Northwest Airlines (acquired by Delta in 2008) recognized the importance of providing all of its customers a positive mobile experience, regardless of their country of origin.
That’s why, in 2007 it became the first truly international mobile site by introducing support of 13 Asian languages. Now, it is a common need for all businesses to provide essential services to international consumers through all channels, from traditional web, to mobile applications, and beyond.
3. Leveraging mobile apps for increased brand loyalty
Once travel companies master their optimized mobile web experience, it is important not to stop there. A crucial part of any travel company’s mobile initiative is the development of a distinct native app strategy to deepen brand loyalty and offer features that the mobile web can’t on its own.
In the hotel industry, Omni Hotels was the first to offer mobile applications for the iPhone and BlackBerry – recognizing the need for dedicated native apps on the major mobile platforms.
4. Location-aware features enhance the mobile travel experience
This year, Expedia was among the first to incorporate location-aware features into its optimized mobile site by leveraging new HTML5 technologies - allowing features like push notifications to be more easily accessible to the traveler.
Other ways Expedia is innovating in location and mobile is by leveraging the smartphone’s internal GPS to offer travelers the ability to search for hotels with same day vacancies near their physical location.
Overall, Expedia has recognized the value location-aware features can provide by delivering more relevant airfare results and hotel information to travelers researching and booking trips on their mobile devices.
The company has successfully incorporated location-based functionality to deliver a site experience that adds relevancy to the travel searching process.
The future of mobile innovation
The early adoption of mobile throughout the travel industry, as well as the numerous mobile innovations travel companies have driven, has further accelerated mobile adoption in other verticals.
Retail and high luxury are good examples, since many companies in these verticals also cater to the affluent business traveler.
Despite the extreme advancements in mobile engagement among travel companies over the last several years, there remain huge opportunities to fulfill additional consumer demands across the entire travel experience.
The companies that continue to deliver compelling consumer experiences on mobile devices will be the ones that separate themselves from competitors.
NB: This is a guest article by Jason Taylor, VP of platform strategy at Usablenet.