Travel firms looking for maximum reach into the mobile market should have a mobile site as well as an app, delegates at a Yahoo! Efficient Frontier were told.
Mobile sites beat apps for market reach says Yahoo!
Travel firms looking for maximum reach into the mobile market should have a mobile site as well as an app, delegates at a Yahoo! Efficient Frontier were told.
John Trigg, Yahoo! head of mobile, said: “There is a market for travel and mobile now, people are willing to book hotel rooms, they are willing to book flights and there are other services you can provide, particularly through apps.
“Business travellers are the most likely to carry out actions on their mobile phone. Accordingly a lot of big hotel groups have realised things like iPhone apps are god for loyalty schemes.
“If you want any reach you really have to have a mobile site,” added Trigg who singled out Kayak, which has built a mobile site that woks alongside its app.
He also said hotels.com’s mobile offering was “very clever and simple”. “Simplicity is key with mobile and very clear calls to action.”
“Although apps are a very nice and provide a very nice brand experience if it’s reach you are looking for you really need to go down the mobile site route,” added Trigg.
Yahoo! has started offering analytics reports on mobile activity, something Trigg said was “very important in proving that mobile works”.
