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Mobile technology is the future for making hotel bookings – TravelMole guest comment.
TravelMole guest comment by Trevor Elswood, commercial director of specialist accommodation and conference management and solutions company BSI.
Within the hotel booking agency industry, there has been much focus over previous years on the Internet and self-booking tools. The internet’s rapid development worldwide has put pressure on the industry to keep up.
The next challenge though is mobile technology. Internet access via mobile phones has historically been limited by fairly basic WAP technology, however the emergence of third generation (3G) phones will change this. 3G will greatly increase the amount of information available to mobile phones through the internet, making navigation easier and increasing the speed of obtaining information.
It’s crucial that the industry reacts more quickly than when the internet revolution began. Hotel bookers, for example, will demand comprehensive content including details of hotel bookings and photos.
It will no longer be enough to just be given the name and location of a hotel. They want to ‘discover’ the hotel before they arrive, plus learn about the location and services at a time and place that is suitable to them.
The pace of change is fast. Technology is decreasing in price, and 3G phones are becoming more and more affordable. Together with competitive rates for using 3G phone lines, it won’t be long before 3G is the norm.
Hotel booking agents need to gear up now though to ensure that they’re ready to greet this new technology.
There has to be a new precedent for offering technology. Following the example of ‘freeware’ software distributed for free over the Internet, BSI already offers the use of it’s self-booking tool (BSI Direct) at no charge to clients. We also offer SMS messaging to individual travellers via mobile phones. The booker’s employer then also benefits from receiving full management information from us on the bookings made, ensuring that hotel policies are adhered to.
On top of the savings already made by outsourcing to a specialist, in the long-run clients will also benefit from reduced costs as the growth of mobile technology reduces the overheads of the agent.
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