REPORT FROM THE U.S.—Last week, as the Major League Baseball regular season came to a close, Kristi White and her husband were hoping to buy tickets for the American League Divisional Series. The Whites went to their quickest and most convenient option—the household iPad—and found the perfect pair of tickets at the price they liked.
As usual, the couple was asked to enter their personal information—name, email address, postal address, credit card number, etc.—and it was such a cumbersome process the site’s time limit ended and the tickets were released. Fortunately the Whites were at home and could purchase the tickets on their PC.
They ate hotdogs and cheered the Texas Rangers to victory on Saturday.
To Kristi White, though, the iPad failure represented more than just a slight annoyance. She imagined herself a hotel guest trying to secure a room, potentially on a mobile device with even smaller keypads than a tablet. Users often err when entering credit card numbers on their devices, causing them to re-enter a second or third time.
Mobile bookings
But that doesn’t stop guests from making reservations on mobile devices. White, who is director of demand and distribution marketing for TravelClick, said through the end of last year mobile bookings made up 0.24% of overall Web bookings in TravelClick’s database. Year to date through August, however, mobile bookings accounted for 3.4% of TravelClick’s overall Web bookings. In July alone, mobile bookings contributed almost 5% to the total Web bookings—a 1,355% increase year over year.
In a recent survey conducted by Sabre Travel Network on mobile use among business travelers, 72% of respondents reported being interested in the ability to view hotels on a map using their mobile devices, an increase of 26% from 2009. Similarly, 47% of business travelers reported using their smartphone daily to view or receive advertisements, a 95% increase from 2009. And 66% of respondents reported interest in the ability to add a hotel reservation to an existing itinerary using their mobile devices.
It’s clear how rapid the growth rate is of people looking to their mobile devices as a source of information and a point of sale. But what is the hotel industry doing to accommodate and capitalize?
Technology Ad Will Appear Here
White said the development of applications to ease the payment process, such as an “electronic wallet,” will be crucial. Specifically, she cited Google Wallet and an early development by PayPal as big steps in the right direction.
“As I know personally, that would be a lot more convenient than the 32 keystrokes necessary on a BlackBerry,” she said. “A wallet application would have made it much easier. That is what our industry has to get to really support adoption. It’s not enough to just be available where I want to book. You have to make it easy for me to do it, too.”
Search-engine giant Google, which prides itself on simplicity and ease-of-use, is quickly taking over as the most dominant smartphone platform, according to the July 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share survey conducted by comScore MobiLens.
Top smartphone platforms
| Platform |
Subscriber share 4/11 |
Subscribers share 7/11 |
Point change |
| Google |
36.4% |
41.8% |
5.4% |
| Apple |
20.9% |
27% |
1 |
| RIM |
25.7% |
21.7% |
-4 |
| Microsoft |
6.7% |
5.7% |
-1 |
| Symbian |
2.3% |
1,9% |
-0.4 |
Source: comScore MobiLens (Total U.S. mobile subscribers, smartphone and non-smartphone, ages 13+)
White said until someone solves the “wallet” problem, mobile won’t truly take off in the hotel space. She said Google Wallet might help hoteliers get there, but the application is only available to a limited number of users and works on near-field communications technology, meaning it isn’t completely compatible with the hospitality space.
What is Google Wallet?
The mobile app promises to “make your phone your wallet” by storing “virtual versions of your existing plastic cards on your phone, along with your coupons, and eventually, loyalty and gift cards.”
Rob Torres, managing director of advertising and marketing for Google, said Google Wallet is going to “take a while to get there” because merchants must be prepared for it by spending capital to adopt the technology.
“It’s basically planning,” he said, speaking at LodgeNet’s Customer Technology Symposium this week. “As you look at your (operating expenses) over the years, ask, ‘Is this going to be big?’ If it’s primarily a business hotel, I think it is.”
Torres said 53% of business travelers in a recent Google survey said they would “absolutely” be willing to book on a mobile device. “We know they’re not doing it now, but in five to 10 years they’re going to be doing it, so we have to definitely be prepared for that change of behavior,” he said. “You see what could be with a mobile wallet. When you see it in action, you think, ‘Wow, this is really cool stuff.’”
But today, the app is only compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google phones, available on the Sprint network. Google Wallet supports only two kinds of credit cards: Citi PayPass eligible MasterCards and a Google Prepaid Card.
“In time, we intend to support all the cards you keep in your wallet today,” reads the Google Wallet website. “We are just beginning to work with financial partners to make our vision a reality.”
