As expected there are three key areas of travel that will benefit from the upcoming Apple Watch launch.
Hotels
Starwood received star treatment on stage with its integration with Apple Watch.
The interface will pull in all relevant reservation details for viewing right on the Apple Watch, and then will go one step further to unlocking doors.
This has been the Holy Grail for sometime and with wrist-bound devices becoming more mainstream, there truly will be the opportunity for hotels to deliver the seamless travel experience promised to road warriors for some time.
On-demand ridesharing
Ridesharing is also a perfect use case for a device such as an Apple Watch. The example used was Uber, where the watch-wearer can hail an Uber ride directly from the watch, and then track the driver from the watchface.
The license plate, driver photo and rating will also show up right on the watch for easy confirmation of the ride.
The airport experience
Air travel is one of the most promising venues for the Apple Watch. From the necessity of boarding passes to the captive audience, there are several use cases that appeal to the regular traveler transiting through airports.
First and foremost, the ability to use the watch as the boarding pass to get through both security and final gate agent is quite useful.
European low cost carrier EasyJet will also feature on the new device.
For anyone that has worried about handing over a new slippery iPhone 6 to a distracted gate agent, this will be a great relief. No longer will there be a risk of dropping an expensive phone, as the watch can simply be held up to the scanner.
For directions in airports, the knowledge that the Passbook app provides to the app will also make it easier to navigate unfamiliar airports while also offering new merchandising opportunities to in-terminal businesses.
Other apps that will be available at launch are Expedia, EasyJet and Priceline, although the applications here are much less riveting than the ones mentioned earlier. Booking travel won't be much fun on a watch face, and so these brands will offer itinerary management functions that won't be as transformative as the use cases above.
Apple has ordered 5 million of these units from its suppliers, so the company is clearly expecting that the device will be quite popular in its first quarter on the market.
The watch in all of its facets goes on sale April 10, and will be shipped on April 24.