Third, HRS heavily invests in Marketing. They have launched a campaign at Apple iAd service leading the user dircectly to the App Store. More interestingly in September 2011 the hotel portal launched a hybrid campaign with QR codes and Bluetooth technique in main stations and central locations of several German cities as well as in the business terminal of Düsseldorf airport.

Users could download the app directly on their smartphone from digital screens or city light posters. If someone did not use one of the fourteen platforms that the portal offers its service for, a bookmark to the mobile website mobile.hrs.com was delivered. The download was enabled via QR code and Bluetooth. That way i.e. travellers could easily get access to the mobile service  of  HRS while they were waiting for their plane or train.
The campaign was organized by Blue Cell Networks, which already covered Düsseldorf Airport with download stations for Bluetooth marketing (we reported about in April this year).  HRS is the first company that uses both Performance Media Networks “iCLP” and “iAir”.

The essence of this article is, that Mobile Marketing helps a lot to drive downloads of your app. It certainly doesn’t say anything about the actual usage. However, HRS reports it will gain 20% of all its bookings from the mobile channel in the next 3 years.

Source:  mobilemarketingworld.com

TUIfly says if passengers accept the new entertainment service, TUIfly plans to provide Tablets on all flights beginning in summer 2012.

Also Australian national carrier Qantas recently started a trial with iPads for entertainment using Wi-Fi stream content on board of the a Boeing 767-300. Use cases for Tablet PCs in aircrafts can not only be seen for passengers. Thinkable is also the use of Tablets for navigation, i.e. Boeing division Jeppsen offers an iPad App for flight Navigation charts or flight attendants equipped with iPads. British Airways is testing to see whether iPads will make cabin crews helpful and more productive during loading and flights.

The trend of using Tablets in the air is just in its beginnings and provides plenty of opportunities. We keep excited.

Already one third of the respondents checked in via smartphone. 17 % use mobile boarding passes and more than 70 % stated they would like to use this service. More than half of the business and first class travellers get SMS texts for alerts.

Free wifi at airports is increasingly popular.  Three of four passengers would connect to a free WIFI network at an airport to look for trip-related information.

Nearly 80 percent want information on their flight. Half of the respondents are interested in security information and 40 percent would search for department gate and walking times. More than 20 percent want to get information about directions and airport parking.

Since six years SITA analyzes the usage of smartphones at airports. In 2011 a total of 2,500 passengers at Abu Dhabi International Airport, Beijing International Airport, Frankfurt International Airport, Mumbai International and Sao Paulo Guarulhos got interviewed.
Find full study here

Egencia Mobile
Egencia Mobile is the latest app release of Expedia, which was especially tailored for the needs of  business travellers. The service of Egencia, that is a part of Expedia specialised in business travel, offers useful services for people on the road:

- Interactive map with all stations of the trip
- Push messages with travel information
- Flight alerts
- Destination alerts
- Flight schedule
- Online check-in
- Click-to-call Egencia customer service

Egencia Mobile is available in 13 countries and supports eight languages so far. At the moment Egencia Mobile is only available for iPhone. New versions for BlackBerry, Android and Smartphones shall follow.

Expedia Pauschalreisen
The app, which is only supported in German, is a booking tool for package tours. Users can search for and book their next  holiday trip on their mobile device. The app has been listed within the Top 100 Travel apps in the German App Store for months now.

Download app here

Expedia Hotels-Book your Hotel Rooms
With Expedias Hotels app one can check the real-time availability and book an accomondation from the Expedia contingent of more than 130,000 hotels worldwide. Since September the App is available in 15 languages.

Download app here

Trip Assist by Expedia
Trip Assist is a mobile itinerary tool that provides extra value such as flight alerts or direct connection to the mobile   website of Expedia to book or change a trip. The tool is only available in the US Apple App Store.

Download app here
What will be the next step in Expedias mobile strategy?

For all those who neither could grab a printed version of the Mobile Travel App Catalog 1.0 at this year`s ITB Berlin nor downloaded it from the internet, we proudly present the catalog for the iPad. Now you can easily browse on the tablet through the pages of the catalog and get an interesting insight into the opportunities of mobile travel applications.

You want to be part of the next version of the Mobile Travel App Catalog? Contact us!

Source: http://invidis.mittelstandswiki.de

I thought Bluetooth Marketing was dead. But no, there is an airport trying it. Airport Düsseldorf uses 120 Beamzones from Blue Cell Networks to cover its airport with download stations. The interesting part of it is that DUS uses a performance based business model. Advertisers such as N24 pay per download and can reach as much as 100.000 downloads per month.

I will be at DUS this week trying by myself. Will see…

Read on: mobilbranche.de

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I would like to say thank you to our sponsors helping us to cover the costs of the Mobile Travel App Catalog. For our next catalog please get in contact with us if you want to be part it. Here are the sponsors in alphabetical order:

ACTE.org——————————————————————–apprupt.com

Avis.de———————————————————————–diginetmedia.de

ITB Asia ——————————————————————–ostseh.com

Unfortunately this research represents the US market only. I am sure that Europe looks similar.

Furthermore Juniper Research reports that every seventh bar coded boarding passes worldwide will be delivered to passengers’ mobile devices within 2 years. This equates to 480 million mobile boarding passes which is treble the 160 million for last year, as mobile technology and especially smartphones are having a rapidly growing impact on the airline industry. Juniper Research has also identified significant market progress for mobile tickets from both vendors and crucially airlines as well as growing potential across train travel and in suburban metro systems, which will be boosted by the momentum currently being seen in NFC.

The Mobile Opportunity

Since the arrival of the Smartphone (not only iPhone but also Android, BlackBerry and newer Nokia devices) and the increasing public awareness thereof, end users (including travellers) have been quick to embrace mobile applications (apps). In the last 12 months there has been an explosion of companies leveraging apps to capture the benefits of mobile technology. According to BITKOM about 900 million apps have been downloaded in Germany in 2010 generating an annual growth of 112% and revenues of 357 million Euro. Over 25% of the German population own and more interestingly use their Smartphone to access the mobile internet: this has become a mass market.

By today the German Apple App Store accounts for about 300.000 apps including 18.324 travel apps (category travel). This is rank no. 7 just after category Utilities with 19.020 apps. Interestingly paid apps account for 72% and only 28% are free travel apps. In terms of downloads the most popular free travel app (in Germany DB Navigator) will reach over 2 million in 2011 and Kayak already has more than 5 million downloads in the US.

Within the App Store category Travel we had a close look at different apps. We analysed the most interesting ones and created 16 categories relating to the travel industry. For each category we took (if available) five travel apps and tried to extract their differences in terms of functionality, ranking and App Store user reviews. We discovered very interesting features and multiple approaches to creating and marketing apps.

The Search function for example, is important for finding places, hotels, train or rental car stations, connections or directions. The analysis showed that there are 10 different ways search (from Augmented Reality to Voice) is used by the app providers. Or Social Media features can range from pure Facebook or Twitter links to integrated sharing functionalities with other Social Media apps. It is also notable that for travel companies booking and reservation via mobile becomes a real positive return on investment business case.

Some players believe that mobile commerce will be arround 20% of their revenue share within the next few years. We think too, that this can be true, because Smartphone apps can create a user experience that is superior to using the corresponding website with the desktop device, and at the same time add specific value to certain travel related use cases. However we also discovered that only a fraction of travel companies do a good job with their mobile strategy which is not understandable considering the importance of the mobile channel.

So we are excited about the future developments in this segment and hope to bring you with this first edition of the Mobile Travel App Catalog, interesting insights into the market. We are also looking forward to getting feedback from you on your mobile experience.

+49 3641 573 3399 or solutions@mvolution.de for a person to person meeting at Hall 7.1c booth 107.

First is: From Web to App for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia …

As one of the most experienced App Developers (already 6 years) we will show how to develop a Mobile strategy and value added Apps with a Cross-Mobile-Platform approach. We offer full services: From consulting (finding the right mobile strategy for your business), concept building (designing screens, storyboard and architecture) and implementation (developing frontend, backend and interface) to quality management (testing, debugging and updating). Additionally, we provide hosting, support and app-store management.

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Second: Itinerary Management

Aimed at the business traveller, travelload solves a problem by providing a single itinerary consolidation travel manager as a tool keeping the travelload subscriber informed, alerted and organized about flight information, trains, hotels, rental cars, weather, timetables, alerts, delays, traffic, change of gates, on fly reservations, booking, navigation, maps and expense reports which are all delivered through intuitive well designed mobile applications, tablet applications, web browsers and social networking integration.-

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Third: Real Time Traveller Tracking

Travel security is a big issue these days. Whether the outbreak of a volcano, weather chaos or political conflicts: There are thousands of scenarios to think of. In order to make the world of travel a bit safer, we developed a crisis management and real time traveller tracking tool. The instrument is integrated into our meta mobility platform travelload. Intelligent filter mechanisms enable target-orientated distribution of information, since travel managers can see who is in the concerned region. In case of emergency a SMS via message centre is sent to all affected persons. The persons can send back their real location information through SMS. Travel Managers see the real time traveller position immediately.