TravelOnTheGo Mobi Marketing

We have completed our research and launched our travel on the go mobile website for travel brands. The website, which is best viewed with a Smartphone, is http://travelonthego.mobi

The first question we asked was should we build mobile apps or mobile websites. That was really a no-brainer, because apps have no place replacing websites.

The Second Question was should we go with the crunch approach, rendering regular websites into tiny version of the same for mobile devices.

Thirdly we wondered should we use .mobi or .com. The .com  is most popular, but the Dotmobi has some special appeal. 

This last question is extensively documents in our hub page http://hubpages.com/hub/travel-on-the-go

We chose DotMobi and it has been the right decision on  a number of counts. Most notably is that .Mobi is a special directory within ICANN and thousands of Search Engines and Mobile Directories use the ICANN information on new dotmobi sites. 

We spent months planning our entry into the Smartphone market and our steps along the way are documents with Hub articles and our own http://SmartphoneTraveller.com website. 

SmartphoneTraveller is a great name but our research and trials indicated it was not the best name for our particular objectives in publishing travel brands to mobile phones. In effect, building SmartPhone enabled websites for travel brands. 

We needed a name that would be: Easy to recall, easy to type on a mobile keypad, would convey the intent and be a good name to represent travel suppliers, a good  name for Travel Brands and their mobile websites.

The aim of the campaign is to generate direct bookings for hotels and tourism operators from Smartphone travelers on the go and on their mobile phone anywhere and at anytime.

TravelOntheGo.mobi measured up to the criteria very well. It is the brand we will share with our clients in building their websites and thier mobile marketing platform. SmartPhoneTraveller.com forms an important part of this marketing.

SmartPhoneTraveller.com is the real website that describes the initiatives. It expands beyond the concept of the marketing and covers details of the entire platform and technology integration. It will also be a consumer focus for our travel publishing. Look to SmartPhone Traveller marketing for travel stories, guides and travel advice in the future. We will have insightful travel stories of destinations and our own travel experiences with the SmartphoneTraveller in our pocket.

TravelOnTheGo.Mobi is the brand now registered in the ICANN directory which is so widely used by the industry. It is the directory and search engine that will promote the hotels and tourism operators that subscribe to our  SmartphoneTraveller marketing platform.

Signing up to the marketing service and the smartphone website is easy with arcRes publisher. Details and features are on our real website at
http://marketing.travel-on-the-go.com. 

 

We help hotel and tourism clients enter details into arcRes. arcRes publishes this info out to the TravelOnTheGo Mobile marketing directories, mobile advertising sites and mobile travel portals and applications.

arcRes also creates a personal TravelOnTheGo.mobi Branded website for each member hotel and tourism partner. It is a personal mobile website with 12 pages of information and a booking engine for the brand. It may be linked from existing websites. The regular website may also be coded to know when a Smartphone is viewing it and to automatically redirect to the appropriate display.

Travel On The Go Brand website are also promoted by the directory listing and arcRes powered marketing to on multiple channels, to Smartphone travelers and regular Internet users. 

A search on Google desktop or mobile will display the TravelOnTheGo  Mobi directory along with hotels that are linked to it.

The first phase of our marketing was target for hotel and accommodation. Restaurants, car rentals and tourism will follow. The search features are being expanding to include search filters and category listing. In other words, a SmartPhone Traveler will be able to filter the display by a number of parameters, such as family hotels, romance etc as well as features, rates and special promotions.

Get Listed now at http://smartphone.arcres.biz

Mobile Directory http://travelonthego.mobi

Need more information http://smartohonetraveller.com

Hotel websits on Smartphones need rethinking

"Most regular websites look horrible on a Smartphone." So says Chris Atkinson, Founder at MobiSphere.

I agree, and we have the proof of that in the video below. This is particularly true for the Hotel and Tourism Operator's website,  where bookings are complex and include many dimensions: Terms and meal plans, upgrades and add-ons,  different rates by season, special deals and promotions,  different rate plans, family plans and packages.

Over the last few years, hotel reservation and booking forms have become wider as developers and application designers put all information on a single screen. The Smartphone just can not handle it. It's time to get back to basics.

Many hotel and tourism owners think the scrunched-up websites on the Smartphone are cute and perfectly adequate. It amazed me that a 700-pixel screen of our site, Barbados.org, did look cute and is readable on a tiny screen. But on closer inspection, it is not so smart and it is rather like the video below, in some cases.

It is inevitable; these sites must be re-designed in order to provide the service. The re-design must be from the ground up. Smartphone and mobile users have a different mindset and they want pertinent facts in precise form. Content must be concise.

There is no doubt that the Smartphone mobile market it going to be vast.
(see whyMobile.PDF). 

eMarketers' research show that both travelers and tourism operators have plans for the Smartphone market.

The question is how best to get there

 eBusiness Strategies found that 40 percent of Smartphone owners say they’ve done at least some of their leisure travel research on their mobile device; 25 percent say they have booked travel through their phones.  Smartphone use is accelerating at a rapid pace as consumers and business users shift from desktop PCs, and  laptops, to iPhones, iPads, Androids, BlackBerrys and other platforms.

 

A critical choice is: should you do applications for every phone, or a build a better web experience?. 

Applications are great. They can be fully optimised for the Smartphone to take advantage of internal features on every phone.

The problem is, of course, that you have to develop an app for each phone (operating system at least).

At the same time, travelers have to download the app, and they have to find it!. App stores have a long way to go to replace web search. Apps are proprietary and closed. They are becoming lost in a crowded app store that has not been designed for search and retrieval. As apps get more numerous, the store seems more inadequate.

When I talk to smartphone users, they all use their phones to browse the web. Many say they browse far more that they look for apps. So that tells me it is the right place to start. I think the apps idea is not mature for travel shopping, compared to the number of users who still browse the net. My view is that web browsing will not go away and it is the right place to start. App stores will not, in my view, replace the search engine, as people will want to find information and services that are free and readily available on the net.

Well, it's a view in hindsight! We initially created a Smartphone application for travel shopping (see our PR http://SmartphoneTraveller.com). It was pretty straight forward and works well. Several hundred travelers have downloaded it already and we are committed to apps as a long-term strategic solution for tourism.  But our next initiatives will be in mobile websites and web-based services for Smartphone mobile website.

We are soon to introduce new applications to help hotels and tourism operators get their own hotel websites and marketing information Smartphone-ready. Websites are ready now with a longer-term strategy to build the same content and new services into apps. It's a comprehensive Smartphone Tourism Marketing strategy; building for the immediate and for the long-term. 

But not all agree with the rational of building smart websites. Apple says that iPhone users don't want search; they want apps. I agree that they certainly don't want to search for regular sites. But the app idea undermines the concept of the web as an open and comprehensive service.

My vision of the future is that people want openness, and if there are great apps, they will want it on their own Smartphone. The best way to deliver that openness is via the Internet. It is where we will see the next burst of innovation as the net morphs into the Smartphone, bringing the entire universe of information to your pocket as quick and easy and as versatile as an app.

Watch out for our next blog, where we outline AXSES Smartphone Strategy for Hotels and Tourism Owners. Direct sales straight to a pocket for you!




LINKS
HubPage on this topic | arcRes travel Platform | 

BREAKING NEWS
Just off the Press: Aug 22 2010 - Eye for Travel EU study finds  "consumers were almost 3 times as likely to access travel services via a browser, compared to an application".
With the ongoing enhancement in Smartphones and development of the web and more Smartphone-ready websites, we expect that consumers will continue to prefer browsing over using an app to shop for travel.