Independent apps that focus on travel needs - from tip calculators to pocket dictionaries - have been the mainstay of business travelers for several years. Now airlines and hotels have caught up to the demand - and expectations - of business travelers with their own smartphone applications since last year's launch by Southwest Airlines of an iPhone app - the first U.S. airline to do so, according to USA Today.
Converging Trends
Hotels and rental car agencies have also introduced their own versions of apps. Hilton Hotels, according to USA Today, introduced iPhone apps for each of its seven brands late last year. Much of this has been in the making for more than a year, of course - over the past three years several airlines have introduced electronic boarding passes that allow passengers to have bar codes sent to their smartphones that are scanned at security checkpoint.
This year, though, several trends are converging to create a bump in business for the hospitality industry - at least that part of the industry that has developed applications for the mobile traveler. These trends include greater adoption of smartphone, the acceptance - or rather downright love by consumers of such applications - and the relative ease of creating such apps.
New statistics from travel research company PhoCusWright underline this trend. In 2008, hotels, airlines and rental car companies each had less than $20 million in direct domestic bookings made via mobile phones, it found. (via USA Today). In 2010, hotels will see mobile booking jump to $76 million; airlines, $61 million; and rental car companies $23 million.
Independent Apps Make Their Own Advances
Not that independent or third party apps are being left behind. Tripwolf, to name one example, has just introduced a mobile travel guide app for the iPhone with an integrated augmented reality viewer. Travelers will now be able to point their iPhone at any new object in a foreign city and retrieve all available information the online travel guide has, without having to open up a book or entering data, it says.
The augmented reality feature will also be available in the offline mode with no roaming costs.
Other signs of progress: Navigational applications are getting more smarter - or at least more solicitous - in the routes that they suggest to their users. Many are beginning to integrate social media elements into the offering as well.
The Route4Me iPhone application, which finds the shortest route for multi-destination trips, is one recent example. Navigon is another. It analyzes individual driving data and designs customized routes with up to three choices. The primary recommendation is based on the user's driving habits, the day of week and time of travel.
SmartPark JFK recently unveiled an app that allows users to make parking reservations at JFK from their mobile devices. It's available on both the iPhone and Android platforms.
