UK Travellers Want More Holiday Booking Apps
A comprehensive survey by a media company has found that travel operators need to make it easier to book cheap flights and cheap hotels on mobile phones, smartphones and the iPad.
The year-long study by Total Media looked at the ways in which young and middle-aged people searched for cheap holidays and booked them. One finding was that mobile devices like the iPhone are increasingly being used to book cheap flights and accommodation.
Respondents aged between 16 and 24 were enthusiastic about using phone apps for planning holidays. Some 18 per cent wanted to be able to find out flight times on their mobiles, while 15 per cent wanted the ability to book cheap hotels on them.
15 per cent of 16 to 44-year-olds wanted apps that enabled them to check out information about their holiday destinations, like local weather reports or guides to eating out.
Men were around twice as likely as women to seek cheap flights on their mobiles. They were also found to be twice as likely to download travel apps for their device.
Total Media said that airlines and travel companies need to make their websites more suitable for use on mobile devices and develop their own travel apps – or at the very least sponsor the more successful ones already out there.
Managing director Nick Oram added: "Mobile is now a mainstream channel for travel brands and they need to embrace it, whether it's through optimising a site for mobile usage, developing apps that provide holiday inspiration or sponsoring successful ones. They should encourage reviews, buy advertising and engage with reviewers in an open way. This will increasingly define how people make decisions while on holiday. It is early days, but the opportunity to take the lead is massive."
Travel Industry News posted by 
on 29 November 2010
