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They have lagged behind sellers of products in accepting the marketing concept and have generally en slow In adopting promotional methods “product” strategy and other marketing techniques. We shall discuss the impact and Importance of marketing applications In different service Industries as follows: Search giant Google reported last year that mobile searches for hotels had risen by an astonishing 7,000 per cent on a yearly basis. Here is another staggering figure: 1 1. Million consumers accessed hospitality and travel services via mobile in SIZE countries (France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the I-J) alone in February 2011. Indeed, a quick trawl through hospitality and travel-related sites will present numerous write- as and reports that feature incredible statistics that bring to light the amazingly fast growing mobile platform in the industry, with experts projecting that the mobile web will surpass the traditional web in size by 2013.
The main reasons for hospitality, and on a larger-scale, travel brands and consumers alike to target mobile-based initiatives include location-based marketing, optimizing consumer loyalty programmed and last minutes bookings. Us-based Hilton Grand Vacations has stated that a study of their consumers’ research and planning habits show that 70 to 77 per .NET of travelers book Just a week prior to travel and 40 per cent on the day of traveling itself, numbers which were unheard of, Just a few years ago.
For hoteliers and their consumers, mobile applications provide price ranges of nearby hotels, restaurant rates, as well as on-demand navigation. Mobile devices integrate various facets of customer service such as seamless exchange of information, payment of goods and services, check-in facilities and most notably, personalized marketing messages, through a simple swipe of a device against an interface. This not only rings about competence of mobile-based service but also is a viable option for personalized interaction with the supplier.
In short, the mobile platform works as a connective tissue between the online and offline entities and rightly, should not be considered as a separate platform, necessitating a different marketing strategy. Instead, the platform should be used as a mean to bring together the brand experience, showcasing stability and uniformity to the consumer, as recommended by Google earlier. With mobile usage outnumbering desktop computer usage world-wide, and articulacy in the Asian countries, it is becoming imperative for companies to invest in smartness and tablets.
This trend is coupled with the fact that consumers are turning away from hotel chain websites, as reported in an digital Research study, adding to the importance of the mobile platform. The study reviewed hotel chains, agents airlines, holiday camps, self catering accommodation, cruises, tour operators and travel agencies. Citing insufficient accommodation and destination information and lack of customer feedback, hotel chain websites were deemed as too corporate’ and thus, scored low for online customer usability.
Traditional airline business models are evolving rapidly to exploit the growth of mobility, and many airlines are beginning to experiment with mobility-enabled personalized services. According to an annual surveys on airline IT trends, co-conducted by SITS, a global provider of aviation technologies and services, adoption of specialized mobile aviation applications rose dramatically over the past two years. Solutions such as websites optimized for mobile access and bar-coded boarding passes sent to smartness are seeing double-digit growth.
Based on the survey, SITS forecasts that by the end of 2010, mobility optimization for besides will grow from 15 percent currently to 51 percent. Mobile phone-based boarding will increase from 7 percent today to 31 percent, and other paper- and card-based applications such as baggage receipts, card access to premium lounges, and cash and credit card payments are also expected to be replaced by mobile applications. In the meantime, use of wireless devices by airport staff to support aircraft maintenance will grow from 17 percent currently to 31 percent by the end of 2010.
Airport and airline operations are also seeing innovative mobility enhancements in he areas of “operational messaging” (between the aircraft and airline headquarters), maintenance, pre- and in-flight services, flight planning, and asset and spare parts management. Let’s take a closer look at how mobile capabilities for airlines have evolved. Mobility 1. 0: Foundational Services Mobility 1. 0 represents mobility most basic and foundational capabilities. These include airlines disseminating essential operational messaging for flight plans, and “irregular” operations, such as emergency situations.
Short message service (SMS) and other text messaging applications have been used extensively by airlines and ideal adopted by passengers. Email has also been a staple for transmitting flight details, gate information, and rudimentary attempts at upsetting and cross-selling of ancillary products and services. While useful, SMS, email, and basic messaging fell short of the rich interaction one can enjoy while accessing the Internet using a PC with broadband connectivity. Mobility 2. : Rich Media and Mobile Web Higher adoption rates of smartness with faster processors and richer operating systems/applications, coupled with faster communications speeds, paved the way for Mobility 2. 0. Smartness neither users from PC’s and are changing the game for passengers; checking flight status and length of security lines, for instance, is only a few phone buttons away. Subscribers of social media sites such as Faceable and Namespace are using these platforms to alert people about flight disruptions and airport ground holds.
Usage of mobile phones to shop for best-value flights, upgrade seats, book hotels, and order taxis also has become mainstream. In many cases, passengers have faster, better, and more accurate information than the airline and its employees. The smartened has greatly enhanced the passenger’s ability to quest and acquire useful information and run rich third-party applications that deliver real-time information about the operator’s environment on a relatively seamless basis. Among the many Mobility 2. Applications, the following solutions are commonly used via mobile phones: Booking-??flight booking and rebooking; onboard food selection prior to boarding code; passenger holds phone up to bar-code reader upon boarding plane Website optimization-??websites designed to accommodate various mobile device footprints (smaller displays, different font sizes) Messaging-??targeted messages and advertisements sent to passengers’ mobile hones based on their unique profiles While many airlines and passengers are enjoying the power of smart mobile technology, the overall percentage of passengers using their smartness to access travel information or perform sophisticated transactions is still relatively small.
According to 2009 data from Forrester Research, roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of travelers used their smartness to look up addresses, directions, flight schedules, and hotel room availability. Frequent business travelers-??the most profitable customer segment-??used their mobile phones an average of two to three times more than non-business travelers. Notwithstanding current usage rates, airlines are increasingly developing innovative strategies to take advantage of Mobility 2. 0 American Airlines’ Multinational Mobile Web Capabilities By offering a range of communication choices, American Airlines (AAA) is in contact with its passengers throughout their Journey, empowering them to take greater control of their travel.
Passengers can select specific services such as mobile check-in via phone and BlackBerry devices, along with a range of delivery options, including 1) voice; 2) SMS-??a cell phone feature AAA says is used by 59 percent of its passengers; ND 3) an AAA website optimized to take advantage of the most advanced mobile phone capabilities. Emirates Airline Drives Mobile Online Innovation Emirates Airline is driving online mobile innovation with a version of Emirates. Com optimized for smartness. Passengers who access Emirates. Com from their smartness are automatically redirected to the mobile website. The site is compatible with more than 3,000 devices, allowing passengers to interact with Emirates while on the move, from almost anywhere in the world.
The mobile site (see Figure 3) provides passengers with the flexibility to manage aspects of their Journey, offering many of the popular features found on Emirates. Com, including: Booking a flight and checking fares Checking in and choosing or changing seats Viewing passenger itinerary, requesting a meal, and booking ground transportation Checking real-time flight status and viewing global timetables Looking for products and services available on any specific flight In analyzing the travel-related APS from a value chain perspective, 7 categories emerged: Navigation, Social, Mobile Marketing, Security/Emergency, Transactional, Entertainment, and Information APS under the navigation category help visitors find heir way around the area.
The sub-categories under navigation include Global Positioning System (GAPS), augmented reality, and way finding. The social category includes APS with a sharing, collaboration, communication or social component. Probably the most obvious of these would be social media outlets where people includes methods of communication, like testing and skips, Mobile marketing APS are used to receive marketing messages, such as text messages for coupons, contests, etc. Security and emergency APS include emergency locator services, health monitoring, weather alerts, etc. The subcategories in this section include medical reporting, emergency services and emergency information.
Transactional APS involve a transaction of some sort, although there does not have to be a money exchange. The different kinds of transactional APS are auctions, financial/banking, tickets/reservations, and shopping. Entertainment APS provide entertainment options like games, movies, e-readers, etc. While some of these may not directly involve tourism APS, they are APS that could be used while on vacation and participating in tourism events. Entertainment is separated into disagrees of games, videos/television, music, e-reader, photographs/editing, and fantasy sports. The information classification contains APS that give guests a variety of information related to tourism.
This category contains a vast array of information sources, from a general information search to self guided tours without GAPS, event schedules, translator/conversion APS, etc. Health Care The institutional and personal healthcare industries represent an excellent opportunity for the creative application of mobile technologies and mechanical applications, especially in addressing ongoing and emerging pain points in an increasingly expensive enterprise. The cost of health care is continuing to challenge the minds of many governments across the globe, and each year costs move relentlessly upward to an extent where they have now reached unsustainable levels in many developed countries.
Within the United States, spending is now over $2 trillion, and many organizations working in this field are increasingly becoming interested in using mobile technology to cut costs and improve efficiency. An example of a recent mobile technology development that could revolutionize our healthcare industry is Bluetooth LEE (Low Energy). This provides a brief overview of why Bluetooth LEE technology mobile APS can have an enormous impact on the bottom line and customer satisfaction where it’s needed most… In “urgent customer care. ” Everyone knows Bluetooth – a wireless protocol used to link mobile phones with hands-free headsets, controllers with video game consoles, and peripherals to computers and tablets.
Newer Bluetooth LEE devices can operate with a battery that is a fraction of the size of existing Bluetooth devices, with standby times in months or time waking up only when there is data to be sent. A device acting as a slave utilizing “Bluetooth Smart”) can in this way announce that it has something to transmit to the master (utilizing “Bluetooth Smart Ready’). LEE is not a substitute for standard Bluetooth, but it has been purposefully designed so that it can be added on to a standard Bluetooth chip for almost no additional cost. The latest version (4. 0… Out now), uses even less power than previous versions, and enables various devices to replace propriety sensor technology, hampered by custom components and platforms, with an inexpensive standard poised to blow the market wide open. So why does all this matter?
Bluetooth LEE capability is perfect for transmitting small amounts of data connected to one’s mobile phone with the capacity to deliver services, information and even indoor GAPS without significantly draining battery life. LEE has the potential to render any electronic device a “remote control” with applications for home monitoring, entertainment, fitness, m-commerce, and healthcare. Regarding healthcare applications, one of the toughest problems facing portable medical devices today is power consumption, and it is here that Bluetooth LEE can be uniquely valuable. Low-cost drug delivery devices especially for those tit chronic medical conditions, like diabetes could log dosage stats as well as vital health information, transforming what is usually a complicated calculus into an automatically self-updating database.
A device could alert the patient or the doctor about any irregularities in dosage intake or health status. In addition, a secondary advantage with this type of mobile app design is the interface with SMS testing technology with a payload of 160 characters per message. This would allow data to be sent automatically and immediately to medical staff or the patient. Makers of locomotors for diabetes are already designing Bluetooth LEE into their devices, and other home instruments like blood pressure monitors and weight scales will follow soon. Other medical device APS include wireless networking of stethoscopes and pulse geometers which can monitor heart rates and stream data to laptops or mobile devices in real-time.
Another example can be found in logging one’s exercise regime and weight as LEE devices are now cheap enough to put in exercise bicycles, treadmills, pedometers and weight scales so that an individual can run an application on a smartened that collects this data and reports how one is doing. Beyond wirelessly connecting medical devices, opportunities to solve problems in healthcare delivery abound. Bluetooth LEE gee-fencing capabilities allow healthcare providers to recognize when a patient arrives at a predetermined radius around a specific location and can deliver appropriate greet-by-name “welcome” or instructional messages to smooth the entry process into what is usually an otherwise stressful visit experience. When one arrives for an appointment, hyperbolical maps and directions can be delivered to one’s mobile phone.
Proximity indoor GAPS APS can track patient behavior within a healthcare facility, medical campus or smaller existed living facility. Beyond existing mobile marketing tactics already in practice, hyperbolically wireless Bluetooth LEE systems can deliver marketing messages with relevancy and immediacy appropriate to a physical condition (and product solution) happening in the here and now. It is not farfetched to claim that from an institutional or individual healthcare perspective, marketing messages can someday be delivered Banking and Insurance Internet Security Systems (SIS) helps banking, finance and insurance institutions cost- effectively improve their information security processes to meet security best raciest and achieve regulatory compliance.
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