Holiday bookings through 'smartphone', a new trend

BERLIN, GERMANY: Vacationers across the world prefer using smartphone for holiday bookings through internet to making direct calls to hotels or airlines, says a latest study.

A new trend in online tourism marketing is fast catching up and close to 25 per cent of people are now reserving hotel rooms and booking flight tickets on the Apple iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry and Palm phones, thereby creating a whole new market of mobile consumerism through cell phone applications, Xinhua news agency reported.

Smartphone users also buy movie tickets and shop for travel needs online, according to the study conducted by Sempora Consulting of Germany.

The statistics were revealed by Sempora Consulting's Hagen J. Sexauer at the Mobile Travel Services Programme held in Berlin.

Sexauer spoke about store owners' need to reach consumers through mobile applications.

"Today, over 100 million people use credit cards through iphone applications. Store owners will need to develop mobile applications to capture that market share," he said.

With the world recovering from last year's economic crisis, "mobile applications will influence the behaviour of consumer services and buying power," he said.

Meanwhile, Christian Riesenberger, director of business development at a German company that offers a global electronic hotel reservation system for business and private travellers, explained the necessity for mobile travel services.

"In the past, the customer mainly called the hotel or travel agency. Now you can check out the environment and make the booking for the same price as on the Internet," Riesenberger said.

Japan now has the highest number of users of mobile applications at 91 million, compared with Germany's 18 million users, Sexauer said.

©IANS