Smartphone platform poised to overturn tourism

Absrtact: Nowadays, visitors will not be able to wander around the streets like they did before, and then hope to find a fantastic hotel or gourmet restaurant by chance because the smartphone has become the exclusive guest of every visitor.

Today, visitors are not as likely to wander around the streets as they would have been before they arrive at a new location, hoping to "happen" to find a fantastic hotel or gourmet restaurant, as the smartphone has become the exclusive personal butler of every visitor. The personal butler can always tell the direction of the destination, local recommended attractions, and even book the next schedule for the user.

It is clear that this shift in the tourism industry will have a huge impact on the development of their entire industry. Previously, the industry had been changed by the advent of online booking sites such as Expedia and online travel agents. In view of the current situation, the smartphone platform is expected to subvert the field again.

This week, the travel house rental community Airbnb added a feature called "Last-minute booking", which allows users to see nearby empty rooms at any time, and to ensure that they can be booked in the evening. Currently, this feature is being tested on a small scale in two locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and if all goes well, it will be introduced into other cities in the future.

OTA's rapid growth in mobile investment

Meanwhile, bi FDI, the market research arm of the famous tech media Business Insider, has released a new study on how smartphones, tablets and other devices can change the way people travel. The report notes that travel agencies and industries have identified the mobile end as one of the most important components of their business strategy and are committed to making their products and services compatible with mobile-end access devices. In addition, those who are still "obsessed" with their own development focus on the traditional PC side of the organization, travel platform is faced with the fate of being eliminated.

The following is the six main points of view of the report from the Business Insider website, as follows:

1. For travellers, mobile devices are an ideal private partner because the device allows people to view information and book services at any time on the road. According to data from the Global Tourism Authority, PhoCusWright, the mobile end will occupy 25% of all U.S. online tourism sales in 2015 and bring in more than 40 billion dollars in revenue.

2. Tablets have gradually become another big tool for people to make their online travel bookings. In the third quarter of 2013, tablets accounted for about 7% per cent of global travel bookings, compared with 11% of the total time spent using tablets to browse travel sites.

3. Currently, several major future trends demonstrated by mobile travel applications are: cross-platform services and marketing, personalized search results based on specific algorithms, creative photo presentations and in-depth integration of data, specific travel information with augmented reality applications and wearable devices.

4. However, there are some hurdles to making mobile platforms the most ideal digital search and the next single channel for people to travel, including poor mobile end user experience, WiFi and 4G coverage loss, which can lead to reluctance to complete the travel payment process on the mobile side.

5. Companies, including airlines, hotel chains and online travel agencies, should embrace the wave of mobility earlier. Airbnb, for example, says that more than 25% of its orders are now from mobile clients, and the company expects the trend to continue to evolve in the future.

6. We believe that wearable equipment and car dashboards will likely be the next major platform for future mobile travel applications. In the future, people will probably often see the advent of mobile travel applications designed for wearable devices.