Reflections on the Mobile Web and Travel

by Todd Lucier on August 6, 2009

Mobile Access will be on Most Handhelds

  • Forrester (July 2009) predicts that by 2013 there will be 2.2 billion Internet users in the world.
  • Cell phone users generally upgrade their phones every 18 months, and virtually all new Cell phones are Web enabled .
  • Research also shows mobile internet access is growing rapidly. 13% of Western European consumers (source: Forrester, July 2009) and 23% of American consumers (source: Pew Research, April 2009) enjoy access the internet on their mobile device.

Web access not used by all Travelers

Accessing the internet on a mobile device when abroad is still expensive. However, mobile phone operators are slowly lowering roaming fees.  The cost of accessing the Web on a phone is expected to continue to decline, just as the cost of making cell phone calls has fallen.

Adapting to Mobile

  • Use fewer images for a Handheld version of your site than the desktop/laptop version. This makes them much faster to use, and cheaper when used while roaming abroad.
  • Provide “Here and Now” focused content that the traveler may be accessing from within your community.
  • Make sure your phone number is front and center on every page of your site which makes it easier for a handheld user to contact you.
  • Link to Google Maps which works seamlessly with GPS / Google Maps-enabled phones such as Apple iPhone, or Google Android devices.
  • respond quickly to inquiries!  The average response time to inquires in the travel industry is a dismal 30+ hours.  In the era of the always connected digital traveler make efforts to respond to inquiries in a timely manner or risk giving business to your digitally savvy competitors.

What are your thoughts on adapting to Mobile?

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  • Well thank you. Thus inspired, I'm expanding these points out to lengthy blog posts and will twit at @dpjanes.
  • A random thought dump on this top:

    Mobile users will be looking for a way to move your information into the tools they are using. This means that (today) things like events should be available as vCal objects and contact information as vCard. In the near future there will probably be demand for encoding microformats or RDFa into HTML also. This will allow users to say "hey, I want to attend this" and add it to the tools that they actually use, for example, their calendar or TripIt or similar.

    In-destination, the emphasis of a mobile site should not be marketing: the user is sold, they're there. Instead, it should be rapidly allow users to navigate to information they're interested in consuming in the most convenient possible way. This means 1) allow users to quickly see navigation items 2) present location information based on proximity (if GPS is available) and 3) event information based on date. IMHO concepts such as "the entertainment district" may have to become deemphasized as this is an organizational unit more suitable to printed pages that mobile devices.

    As you say, respond quickly to inquiries. In a user is using a mobile device in-destination, they are likely to be very deep in the sales funnel and conversion should be made as simple and painless as possible.

    Page load speed is as critical as possible. This is true in the web browser world too, but in mobile: 1) minimize JavaScript, as there's probably not a lot of value or CPU cycles to do it 2) minimize page size, as that corresponds to time-to-download and also cost to the user. Since the traveler is likely not to be using their normal carrier, they'll appreciate the effort.

    Consider automatically redirecting the user to your mobile site (e.g. m.example.com) if they're hitting your "normal" site (e.g. www.example.com) from a mobile device, or at least prominently showing the user the option to do this. If you have an iPhone or BB app (this is more a DMO level task), make sure that links to that are available also.
  • Perhaps the most insightful comment I've ever seen on this blog. Well said.
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