Sabre Travel Network last week offered a sneak peek into the results of its mobile survey of business travelers. The explosion of mobile travel services over the past several years has single-handedly, what they call, “consumerized” business travel. Travelers expect more and more from their mobile phones as they grow more comfortable with them.
Sabre’s survey shows that people use travel services on their smartphones everyday and for every trip — before, during and after they travel. The survey showed that travelers want to be able to incorporate those functions that they have become accustomed to into the world of managed business travel.
The Sabre survey showed that finding directions was one of the most important functions for users of mobile devices.
• 72 percent of business travelers are interested in ability to view hotels on a map, an increase of 26 percent from 2009.
• 43 percent of business travelers reported daily use of their smartphone to access navigation services
• 71 percent want to receive driving directions to a specific location via their smartphone
“Consumers already rely on their mobile devices to help them navigate their way through cities around the world,” according to a Sabre spokeman. “In the future, they’ll look for mobile services that are not only location-based but contextually-aware such as airport navigational tools with the ability to find in-airport businesses but also have deals and offers pushed to their smartphone.”
More and more mobile phones are being used to book travel. Here, corporate travelers with specific controls face more problems than they would during their leisure travel.
• 66 percent of respondents are interested in booking rental cars via their smartphone, a 32 percent increase from 2009
• More than two-thirds want to shop for and make hotel reservations via mobile devices
• 66 percent of respondents reported interest in the ability to add a hotel reservation to an existing itinerary.
Plus, as airlines begin to come into the mobile space more effectively, passengers will be looking at checking in online, buying seat upgrades, paying for luggage, ordering WiFi, reserving pillow and blankets, and so on.
Ironically, using the phone capability of smart cell phone is one of the lowest priorities for business travelers.
What are some of the uses you make of smartphone while traveling? What do you look forward to in the future as capabilities expand?
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
