Mobile Internet – The New ‘Blue Eyed’ Venture in Travel Business

With each passing day, mobile marketing is spreading its wings towards newer and more attractive horizons. The trend is quiet evident from the fact that the number of mobile phone users in the year 2009 has already touched an overwhelming 280.8 million mark. However, there is further good news waiting for mobile marketers as the number of subscribers is projected to touch the 290 million mark in 2010. Nevertheless, this additional customer count also means that there shall be additional responsibilities on the part of the users. The m-marketers need to ensure that the huge subscriber base is satisfied with their services.

The number of mobile subscribers has not only increased, the horizon of the services has also increased beyond expectations. Such extensions of mobile services have had a widespread impact. One such impact is that it’s being used by travelers for planning and booking hotels. Some of the hoteliers are proactive enough to tap the potential and are able to generate incremental revenues from the mobile sites.

What the hotelier needs to do?

The hotelier just needs to follow some steps in order to make hay while the sun shines, though incidentally, this m marketing sun shows no sign of setting even in the distant future. The first step would be to create a mobile website, which should have the potential to play the pivotal role for all your future marketing plans that ranges from text messaging to Google mobile ads. The search marketing strategy should include Google mobile ads along with sign-ups to mobile opt-in list. None of these strategies should be scrapped due to budget limitations as it shall not only be fruitful for the running year but will have a positive impact on your business even in the long-term. Each of the aspects of the plan that includes location-based services, mobile applications and m-CRM requires careful execution, advanced technology and a better economic scenario.

Mobile internet and conventional internet are not conventional

There is a misconception as people often try to relate wireless internet to mobile internet. However, mobile internet is a completely different to conventional internet. Mobile internet is inferior to conventional internet on the ground of various factors that includes faulty browsers, slow speed, small displays, multi step booking, limited data input etc. The limitation can be easily understood by the fact that a screen of 1280×1024 pixels is being squeezed to as small as a mobile screen. To overcome these limitations, hoteliers should give a serious thought to provide a conducive mobile internet service that satisfies the subscribers.

Requirements for a mobile site

The essential contents of a mobile site that actually helps the customers and make the site self complete are:

– The site should contain the information relevant to the location of the hotel and its booking, special offers, account information, interactive maps and a user friendly login set up for speedy reservations.

– In case of a single property hotel, a mini version with 4-10 pages will serve the purpose. However, some information is absolutely necessary irrespective of the size of the site like contact information, reservation information, description about the primary customer segment, services and amenities offered by the hotel and resort. Moreover, it should be a user-friendly site with arrival date, number of room, nights along with a drop-down lists and calendars.

– Privacy of the customer’s profile must be ensured through either the mobile booking engine vendor or the hotel mobile site. The security of customer’s should be emphasized as wireless carriers are very strict about their subscriber’s privacy and any sort of cold calling or unsolicited text campaigns may meet with unpleasant consequences.