Mobile technology is fast evolving to support personalisation and context awareness, mobile wallet functionality and, eventually, advanced behaviour support that filters and targets information based on user behaviour.
Certain principles can serve as a guide to mobile development. The four Ps of mobile travel highlight the qualities that travel companies should emphasise in their offerings.
Performance
Mobile offerings should be made better, more intuitive and easier to use. Mobile travel is about making the travel process seamless at every stage of the travel value chain. This could be as simple as providing information on local hotels or notifying travellers via SMS that their flight is delayed. Or it could be as advanced as understanding where travellers are in the travel process, anticipating their needs, and delivering relevant recommendation.
Personalisation
Smartphones and tablets are highly personal devices, providing a one-to-one connection between travel companies and individual travellers. As such, they create the opportunity for companies to deliver personalised content and interactions.
This could be enabling travellers to store their credit-card information for future use or log in to a loyalty account to access frequent flier details. More advanced personalisation will take into account the traveller’s identity, past purchases, trip type, and preferences to deliver a customised user experience.
Portability
Mobile devices are by definition portable, and this portability changes everything. Many travellers are now connected throughout the travel life cycle, creating unprecedented opportunities for suppliers and intermediaries to support the travel process at every stage.
Pleasure
The very best mobile travel offerings today nail the combination of usability, design and surprise that takes the experience from functional to delightful. Mobile devices often straddle the line between fun and productivity, and the power of the pleasure principle should not be underestimated. Indeed, the rapid rise of start-ups such as Uber and Airbnb has been fuelled in part by the experience travellers encounter when using their services.
— The writer is a Research Analyst, Asia-Pacific at PhocusWright Research. The firm’s presentation, Middle East Travel: Online Today, Mobile Tomorrow, is at 3.30pm on Wednesday, May 7, at Arabian Travel Market
