Mobile to handle quarter of online bookings by 2017 – report
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A quarter of corporate online travel bookings will be made using a mobile device in 2017, a new report has predicted.
The study by Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) forecast a sharp rise in mobile bookings in the next three years. Both travellers and travel managers said they expect mobile bookings to increase significantly, reaching 25% of online transactions by 2017.
In comparison, it took up to eight years for online booking tools to reach the same level of activity that mobile is expected to achieve in the next three years.
The study also highlighted the benefits this surge in mobile bookings is expected to bring. While neither travellers nor travel managers expect mobile to significantly reduce travel costs, they do believe that it will make doing business easier and boost productivity.
Travel alerts were found to be ‘very important’ to travellers, who rank them the third most important mobile service feature, after flight status updates and itinerary information.
And travellers in the Asia Pacific region were found to place more importance on mobile bookings (62% consider it important or critical), compared with North America (55%) and EMEA (45%).
“We have been planning for this shift for some time and are getting ready to launch new mobile services, such as mobile booking through ‘CWT To Go’ (CWT’s corporate travel app) later this year,” said David Moran, CWT’s executive vice president of global marketing & enterprise strategy.
“While 80% of travellers and travel managers told us they want a one-stop-shop app so they don’t have to juggle between best-of-breed consumer apps, there isn’t an app on the market today that answers all their needs, and that’s what we’re excited about – building on CWT To Go to create the corporate travel app that appeals to both travel managers and travelers.”
The survey found that approximately 62% of travellers already carry company smartphones and 56% of companies surveyed already have, or plan to introduce, a ‘bring your own device’ policy.
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