What Business Travelers Really Do With Their SmartPhones (Or, Why SwiftMobile’s “Nearby” Feature Is So Hot)
A new ComScore report offers insights into how people are using their smartphones when staying a a hotel. For starters, the study revealed that 51% of people used smartphones for travel-related products, services and content in the last three months. Four out five accessed both air and hotel information.
Here are the some of the top hotel or travel related tasks people do with their smartphones:
- 29% looked up their hotel address or directions
- 25% looked at flight schedules
- 25% checked a flight’s status
- 24% looked up airport information
- 23% searched for local attractions or deistinations
- 22% looked for a place to eat near their hotel
- 22% read a hotel review
- 17 % accessed info on ground transportation near their hotel
- 10% canceled a hotel reservation
ComScore senior vice president of mobile, Mark Donovan noted:
“Both OTAs and suppliers need to understand the demographic and behavioral characteristics of these mobile travelers in order to build effective mobile strategies that complement their online presence…Failure to develop a strong mobile presence could result in unsatisfied customers and lost opportunities to convert new audiences, leaving brands vulnerable to competitors who adapt more quickly to addressing consumers’ shifting consumption habits.”
Which brings us to SwiftMobile’s “Nearby” and “Transportation” features. Because if there’s one thing that matters to us, it’s a highly satisfied user.
Make Your Attendees Happy
From the beginning, we’ve built our apps with these two features firmly embedded into their functionality. SwiftMobile’s “Nearby” offers GPS-enabled maps carefully annotated with key points of interests, local merchants, business services, hotels and restaurants curated specifically for our customers’ attendees. We can add your offsite parties, too!
These points include links, phone numbers, and even, in some cases, reviews and comments. Increasingly our “nearby “section is also including promotional offers and special deals for travelers.” Our transportation features include local ground transportation subway maps, as well as flight schedule, hotel shuttle schedules and more.
In fact, our apps let your attendees do everything on the list above without ever leaving the meeting app.
While we may be one of the only app developers who make both these features standard, we know from our own research and studies like this one how important these features are to meeting attendees. Our analytics data also consistently show that after session information, “Nearby “is the most frequented part of our apps and “Transportation” is second.
Our view is that your meeting app should always make attending a meeting a little less of a hassle and a lot more fun. From our perspective reliable local information and up-to-the-minute transportation details are non-negotiable. An app that includes these features is more convenient and more appreciated. And by including these features in your app, you can keep your attendees more engaged in the meeting itself.
