The future of travel: the real impact of mobile and social media

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Even with social media and mobile technology showing incredible rates of adoption, skeptics remain. Everyone has a friend or family member who “doesn’t do” Facebook or thinks Twitter is somewhere between worthless and moronic. That said, marketing teams in the travel industry are watching these trends closely. In fact, the intersection of mobile device and app adoption with slowing social media market penetration could lead to interesting developments for the travel industry … and thus for you.

Okay, let’s start with social media take-up in the United States. Right now, 63 percent of online Americans use social media. This is only expected to hit 67.5 percent by 2013. What does this mean? The marketing folks who use social media need to do a better job of mining the online communities they already have. As you probably know, hotels, airlines and such are all over Facebook and Twitter, so they definitely fall into this trend.

Mobile device and app adoption by the travel industry’s target market is what makes this even more interesting. eMarketer reports that “nearly 25 million US mobile users will research travel information on their mobile devices before making a trip this year.” And, close to 12 million will use mobile to actually pull the trigger and book their trips.

This is just the beginning.
eMarketer forecasts that, by next year, 34 percent of smartphone users and 31 percent of mobile internet users in the United States will exploit these channels to research travel. This will extend to bookings, too, which will be made by 18 percent of smartphone users and 16 percent of mobile internet users.

“Mobile has dramatically altered the travel experience,” according to Noah Elkin, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report, “Mobile Travel Takes Off: Emerging Trends and Best Practices for Marketers.” Elkin said, “From pre-trip planning to in-flight and on-property services to context- and location-aware destination information, mobile devices promise to transform every phase in the travel process, putting vital information-and new marketing opportunities-within hand’s reach.”

Travelers – people like you and me – are making a profound statement through our behavior. We use social media, and travel companies need to figure out how to engage us there more effectively. We use mobile devices, and they are stuck with the same challenge. We’re seeing these two trends converge, which poses an interesting problem for the travel industry. It needs to find ways to engage with us where we are most comfortable in order to get in front of emerging trends.

This is clear from Elkin’s further observations on eMarketer’s blog:

“An integrated, comprehensive approach will serve brands best,” said Elkin. “The more flexibly brands can offer to help their customers manage their travel-using a mobile-optimized website, apps and integration between mobile, online and offline channels-the more effective they will be. Mobile travelers, especially those carrying smartphones, are demanding, and expect suppliers to get it right the first time.”

On the surface, this may look like just another business trend in the travel industry, but what’s beneath it is far more important. How we travel – and plan for it – is changing. It’s nice to hear the platitudes about mobile and social media bandied about, but all that is meaningless until money changes hands. Talk is cheap, as they say, and it’s consumer behavior that provides the best indicator of what the future will look like.

Gadling Q & A with Daniel Edward Craig, author and hotel consultant

by Meg Nesterov on

Daniel Edward Craig shares a name with the current James Bond, and like 007, he’s a world traveler and a man of many hats. He’s taken a career in hotel management and a keen ear for storytelling and parlayed it into a murder mystery book series, an engaging industry blog, and a hotel and social media consultancy. Here he tells Gadling about his history in the travel world, who’s providing the best social media content for travelers, and what’s next in hotel trends.

Tell me about your history in the hotel and travel business.

I’ve worked in hotels off and on for about twenty years. I started on the front desk at the Delta Chelsea Inn in Toronto and went on to work for a range of hotels, from big-box to boutique, in positions ranging from duty manager to vice president. Most recently, I was vice president and general manager of Opus Hotels in Vancouver and Montreal.

What title do you think best captures your profession these days?

These days I work as an author and hotel consultant. I left Opus at the end of 2007, shortly after my first novel was published, to complete the second and third novels in the Five-Star Mystery series. Now I am working on a fourth book as well as various consulting projects for the hotel industry, ranging from social media strategy to executive coaching. I also continue to write my blog and articles about the hotel industry. It’s been a rough few years for hotels, and I think we could all use some levity, so in my writing I try to take a lighthearted look at issues.

Do you think you’ll ever go back to managing a hotel?

I hope so. Hotels are my first love; writing is secondary. As a hotel manager, I feel fully engaged and at my best, whereas as a writer all my neurotic tendencies come out. Writing is a solitary profession, and I’m better as part of a team. Once I finish my current book at the end of this year, I’ll decide what’s next, and that could very well involve a return to hotels full-time. I’ll always write, but after a year of 4:00 AM mornings and late nights, I promised myself never to write books and manage a hotel at the same time.

What are you most critical of as a hotel guest?

I’m extremely service oriented. I’ll cut a property a lot of slack if it isn’t my style or if facilities are limited, but bad service can ruin my trip. In particular, I dislike overly scripted, apathetic service. I love a hotel with originality and a lot of life in the lobby. And I look for soul, a combination of design, culture, clientele and spirit, that intangible feeling that I’m in the right place. That’s why I prefer independent boutique hotels – it’s easier for them to do these things well.

What’s your favorite hotel?

Don’t make me choose! It depends on my mood and the nature of travel. I was just in Chicago and was blown away by the new Elysian Hotel. If I’m relaxing or working, I like the Four Seasons. I can’t always afford to stay in them, but I will splurge on a drink in the lounge and will hang around until I’m asked to leave. My favorite is the Four Seasons Georges V in Paris. But I also love contemporary boutique hotels. I’m a city boy, and when I feel like socializing I want to stay in a hotel with a scene, like the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, and the Clift in San Francisco. XV Beacon in Boston is also one of my faves.

Given the many social media experts today, how do you stand apart?

I’d never call myself a social media expert. Who can keep up? I’m a hotelier first, who happens to know a lot about social media and reputation management. Social media allows me to combine my two professions as a hotelier and an author, because essentially it’s about storytelling. Social media touches every department in a hotel, and as a former general manager I understand the interplay and interdependence involved, and to rise above individual departmental interests to develop a strategy that benefits the hotel as a whole.

What hotels/travel companies do you think are doing social media “well”?

I think there are a number of hotel companies that do certain aspects of social media well, but nobody is doing anything particularly innovative. HKHotels in New York are doing a great job of reputation management. Best Western runs a good Facebook page. InterContinental Hotel Group makes great concierge videos. The Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee manages Twitter well. Red Carnation Hotels in London and Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver have good blogs. Joie de Vivre Hotels does great contests.

Hoteliers are great storytellers, and with all the comings and goings of guests we have a rich resource of content to draw from, and yet this isn’t translating to social media. A lot of hotel content is trite and uninspiring, and most of the voices sound the same: perky and vaguely annoying. Hotels can learn a lot from online reviewers, who spin the best stories, with strong points of view, hooks, humor, trivia and facts. I think there are huge opportunities for the hotel industry, and I’d love to help a hotel become the social media hotel in a given destination.

What made you start writing murder mysteries?

I always wanted to write, and naively thought that writing a mystery would be fun and easy. They say write what you know, and at the time I was working as a duty manager, so I set it in a hotel. Ten years later, Murder at the Universe was published. For me it was a one-off, but my publisher liked the idea of a hotel manager who writes mysteries set in hotels, so they contracted me to develop it into a series. Since then I’ve published Murder at Hotel Cinema and Murder at Graverly Manor.

After three novels, I started to get bored with my protagonist, the hapless hotelier Trevor Lambert, and all that whining. And there could only be so many murders in his hotels before people started suspecting him. The book I’m finishing up now is non-fiction, an irreverent insider’s look at hotels, written for travelers.

What do you see as the next big trends in hotels?

Mobile is huge. Increasingly, people are researching, booking and recommending travel via smart phones. Social media will grow as people continue to bypass travel journalists and hotels for travel information in favor of travelers, friends and social networks, all from the palm of the hand. When it comes down to it, however, above all hotel guests still want comfort, convenience and value. They just have much larger audiences to air their grievances to when they don’t get what they want.

What’s next for you?

After I finish the book, I’ll put book writing on hold for now and will continue to work on hotel projects, to blog, and to write articles. I’m starting to book quite a few speaking engagements in 2011. My platform as an author and hotelier is quite unique, and social media reputation management are hot topics. If I find a good job with a progressive hotel company, great, but until then I have no shortage of things to keep me occupied.

Read all about Daniel Edward Craig, his books, and his blog at his website, www.danieledwardcraig.com

How to pick the perfect travel smartphone

by Scott Carmichael on

Picking the right smartphone for travel can be a major hassle – with so many choices of mobile operators, different phones, different network technologies and different budgets, finding the right one is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Worst of all – with mobile contracts, picking the wrong phone could mean you are stuck with a dud for two years.

In finding the right smartphone, you need to determine your budget, your traveling destinations, application needs, security requirements, current contract obligations and more.

But as always – we are here to help. I’ll stop short of calling myself an expert on mobile phones, but I’m on my 18th year of traveling with a cellular phone, and after over 400 different phones, I’ve seen enough of the mobile world to know a thing or two about what you need in a travel friendly phone.One of the best places to start, is to determine where your trips will be taking you – in the US, we currently have four large operators – AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. Of these four, two use the GSM system for their phones, and the other two use CDMA. Why does this matter? Well, one of those systems is not used that much outside the United States, which means you could pick a phone that won’t work where your trips take you.

Picking the right network

Your first choice is going to be how to pick the best network. Don’t fall for the ads showing the “amazing new phone with the magical features” – it could very well be that “amazing” only applies to “within the United States”, making it a poor choice for international travel. A good example of this is the new Sprint EVO 4G – an amazing phone, but virtually useless for phone calls outside the United States.

AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM operators – their network and phones are by far the easiest option for international travelers. On their (postpaid/contract) plans, you can simply bring your phone abroad, and use almost any other GSM network. But beware – there is a high cost involved with this (more on that later).

Sprint and Verizon use CDMA (along with a bunch of other operators like Cricket and Virgin Mobile). There is absolutely nothing wrong with CDMA (despite what some TV commercials try to tell you). In fact, if you know in advance that you’ll be staying in the United States or Canada, CDMA networks provide by far the best coverage.

Sadly, when it comes to Europe, Asia and most of South America, CDMA is pretty much non-existent. This means you’ll arrive in France, and your Verizon phone will do absolutely nothing (unless you find some Wi-Fi).

Now, since this stuff isn’t complicated enough already, there are CDMA phones that are sold as “Global Phone” – these devices are half CDMA and half GSM. With a global phone, you use the CDMA network when available, and switch to GSM when you are outside a CDMA country. These phones use the SIM cards found on GSM phones. Confused yet?

Picking the right features

Oh my – this is a tough one, 3G, 4G, Skype, Google Voice, GSM, multi-touch, tethering, 3.2MP, 5MP, 8MP, HD video, Qik, HDMI…

The list of features on current generation phones is worth a story on its own. Bottom line is this – pick the four or five features you can’t do without – then determine your budget, then go shopping.

Things I feel you need on any travel phone are: reliable data/voice, GPS, Wi-Fi and great battery life. Things that are nice to have include a good camera, decent storage for music/photos and videos and an easy way to enter text.

Everything extra is just that – a bonus. Don’t fall for looks – a good looking phone may make you feel important, but a good looking phone with a dead battery won’t help you navigate back to your hotel.

Applications are another important factor – are you looking for a phone that does nothing more than make phone calls, or are you going to be ambitious and find something that can do Internet voice calls, mobile travel blogging and more?

If applications are important to you, you’ll want to focus on the top three platforms – iPhone, Android and Blackberry (I’m excluding Windows Mobile at the moment, because it is transitioning to a brand new version that does not work with older apps).

The world of mobile applications is dominated by the iPhone – plain and simple. The best apps are currently all there – but Android powered phones are catching up very quickly. In fact, the Android platform has several applications you won’t find on the iPhone (Google Voice, Google maps with navigation).

So – determine your needs, then check out the app stores of each platform. If you have favorites on your desktop or laptop, check to see whether those apps are available as mobile versions for your upcoming phone.

With 100’s of phones on the market, you’ll need an easy way to narrow down the available options. The Phone Scoop phone finder is a great tool for this – their database can pinpoint the perfect phone, based off almost 50 different features and requirements.

The Gadling top picks for travel phones

As of this month (June 2010), the phones I’d recommend for travelers are:

Best pick for US only**
 Best pick for international travel (CDMA/GSM)**
 Best pick full feature smartphone
 Best budget pick smartphone
AT&T N/A N/A iPhone 3GS
(or iPhone 4 on 6/23)		 Nokia E71x
T-Mobile N/A N/A Garminfone or Google Nexus One Nokia E73 Mode
Sprint EVO 4G Blackberry Bold 9650 EVO 4G* Palm Pre or Palm Pixi
Verizon Droid Incredible* Blackberry Bold 9650 Droid Incredible* Palm Pixi Plus*

* Droid Incredible, EVO 4G, Palm Pixi (plus) and Palm Pre are CDMA only – for use in Europe and other GSM countries, pick a Global Phone

** All AT&T and T-Mobile phones will work around the world on almost any GSM network

Some unexpected choices?

When it comes to travel phones, a lot of folks instantly reach for the iPhone – and while it does indeed provide pretty much everything travelers need, there are some other often overlooked options out there:

Nokia Symbian S60 powered phones – Nokia phones are a great choice, because of their great variety in hardware and availability of Nokia Ovi maps. This means almost all Nokia smartphones can be turned into a full navigation system with worldwide maps. And best of all, the maps are loaded “locally”, which means you don’t incur data charges when you travel.

Android powered phones – It is no secret that I’m a huge Android fan, but travelers can benefit from the power of these phones thanks to Google maps with navigation. One downside is that these maps rely on a data connection, making them less of an option when you are abroad.

Blackberry devices on T-Mobile (with Wi-Fi) – T-Mobile Blackberry devices with Wi-Fi have one very special trick up their sleeves – when abroad, you can connect to a Wi-Fi network, and get the same connectivity as on a cellular network. The technology is called UMA, and we covered it back in 2008. With UMA, you can make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages all without paying for international data. This means you can check into your hotel in Tokyo, get your Blackberry online, and use it just like at home. Minutes come out of your regular pool, or can be unlimited when you add the $9.99/month Hotspot plan. The best part is that you don’t need to configure anything – as soon as the phone gets online, it can use the service.

Things to look out for when you travel

There are some important things to keep in mind when you travel with your new mobile phone. The first, is making sure you are actually able to use it abroad – before you leave, check with your provider whether your account is provisioned for international use. In many cases, a brand new mobile account may be barred from international “roaming”, and you wouldn’t be the first person to arrive abroad and discover that your phone won’t work.

The next important issue is the cost of international data. If you freak out at the prospect of $2/minute phone calls, you’ll probably get a heart attack when you realize that international data costs around $20 per megabyte. To put that in perspective – downloading a one hour movie when you are abroad could end up costing about $14,000. Yes – 14 THOUSAND dollars.

There are plenty of ways to stay away from cellular data when you travel, but the most important thing you can do is disable it entirely – so before you leave, check your user manual or browse support sites. If you try to figure out how to do this when you arrive abroad, you could have racked up a $500 bill before you even find the “off” button.

One final word of advice – when you shop for a phone, consider paying for an unlocked phone. The process of “locking” a phone means your mobile operator has altered its software to only allow subscriptions from their own network to use it. This makes it impossible to walk into a phone store abroad, and buy a prepaid subscription. We’ll discuss the advantages of prepaid phones in an upcoming article.

Walkie talkies work everywhere – Road trip tip

by Gadling Staff on

Walkie talkies use radio waves to communicate directly with each other, unlike cell phones, which rely on a cell phone tower as a go-between.

People on road trips often end up in rural areas where cell phones are useless. A couple of inexpensive walkie talkies can help your group stay in touch, as well as keep the kids entertained.

Bonus tip: Walkie talkies also work on cruise ships!

SkyMall Monday: SkyMall Mobile

by Mike Barish on

For years, we’ve all enjoyed flipping through the SkyMall catalog on domestic flights. If you’re like us, you’ve always been frustrated that you had to wait until you landed to order your products. Sure, you could call in your order using the in-flight phone, but those calls are expensive and using the seatback phone pretty much lets everyone on the plane know that you’re a USDA certified douchebag. Now, however, more and more flights are equipped with wireless internet access. And that means that you can chat online, check emails and, yes, make your SkyMall dreams come true at 35,000 feet. Always on the forefront of innovation, SkyMall has made things even easier by introducing mobile apps for smartphones. Whether you’re a mile high, walking down the street or fingering a perp down at the precinct, you can browse the catalog, select your dream product and place your order all from your mobile device. It’s as if the best part of flying has packed its bag and moved into your pocket (which would explain that giant bulge you’re walking around with, champ).

Here at SkyMall Monday Headquarters, we still believe that the SkyMall catalog is best enjoyed in paper form on an airplane. But absent that, we welcome all technological advances that make getting these life-changing products into our hands quicker and easier than before. Which is why, this week, we’re taking a break from reviewing products to, instead, review the new SkyMall iPhone application.First things first, the SkyMall iPhone app is free. That makes it a real bargain.

More importantly, the app puts the entire SkyMall catalog on your phone. It automatically updates so that you are always perusing the current array of SkyMall booty. You can browse by department, by gift suggestions (sorted by intended recipient and price tiers) or simply search for a product by name. Once you identify a product of interest, you can read the product description, add it to your cart or email it to a friend to get a second opinion. After that, you can purchase your product directly from within the app.

The app allows you to complete your order just as you would online. You can even store your shipping address and credit card information for easy ordering. Within seconds, you’ll have found and ordered the SkyMall product of your dreams.

But the SkyMall iPhone app is more than just a handheld catalog. The app gives you instant access to SkyMall contact information, SkyMall’s Twitter feed and even a game of Concentration featuring popular SkyMall products. Killing time on flights just got SkyMallier!

As lovers of the SkyMall catalog, we love anything that brings us closer to becoming one with the catalog. But even someone without our strong pro-SkyMall bias would have to agree that this app is actually one of the better uses of mobile technology to date. It gives you true, 100% access to the catalog, excellent search capabilities and an ease of use that may be unparalleled in the mobile commerce market. Plus, you can’t beat the price.

SkyMall’s mobile app is available for iPhone and Blackberry. For those of you without either of those phones, you can still order on the go by navigating to SkyMall’s mobile page or by taking advantage of their new text-to-order interface. You can find out more about SkyMall’s mobile options here.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.