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Mobile travel services: from magic to mundane

March 13, 2008 by Neil Maclean 

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Martin Cowen at Travolution covers the recent Amadeus report on the future of the hospitality industry. Mobile looms large in this and Martin’s concluding “what’s a fax” question made me think of a session covering mobile technology at the recent Tourism Innovation Day.

Exhibitors talked about the clever things they can do to and send to your customers’ phones. One for example talked about selling hotels a service which allows them to deliver vouchers for local attractions direct to guests’ mobile phones and a member of the audience gushed “just like magic.”

Well, yes and more likely no. Remember the rush to get on the internet and all the web firms which sprung up selling their “magic” door to door to people who didn’t understand the internet but thought they’d better have some of it?

I think the same is happening with mobile and the travel business and some of the mobile people had better make their money quickly and get out before it stops looking like magic.

There are almost certainly cheaper and easier services coming which hotels and tour operators will be able to set up themselves. My personal computer can already send an annotated map and events info to my mobile via bluetooth; I can also send video to my mobile via the internet. It hardly takes a leap of imagination to extend that thought to simpler mobile services for the travel business.

In another room at Tourism Innovation, VisitScotland was selling its Web in a Box product to hotels and operators. I am sure it won’t be long before we are buying easy to use Mobile Services in a Box.


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    Hi Neil - Martin Cowen from Travolution here.

    Mobile does seems to be everywhere at the moment, if only because mobile phones themselves are everywhere at the moment!

    There is a lot of nonsense talked around all new technologies, admittedly, and mobile is no exception. I covered a business travel conference recently when a consultant - specialising in mobile - told a room full of independent bricks and mortar business travel agents to start bluetooth advertising. People just don’t buy business travel in that way, but the room gushed and I’m sure the consultant is doing well out of it!

    But that’s not to say the high street leisure agents shouldn’t be looking at keeping in touch with clients through SMS or the other freely available mobile phone functionalities you mention.

    And the big OTAs in the States are doing some very high-end customer service initiatives using mobile. Kayak has also said that mobiles are very much part of its long-term thinking for Europe.

    I also think that because of the WAP debacle, mobile has to work even harder to prove itself as a viable channel for travel suppliers. And that is a good thing.
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