I do most of my technology previews on Friday, but since that was Digital Down Day for us, we’re doing it today….

Bryan Bruce is a hospitality technology marketing professional from Orlando, and today we talk about the future of mobile apps for meetings – and how your hotel can benefit.

• The benefits of mobile apps for users
  • More efficient enjoyable attendee experience
  • Reduce printing costs (green initiative)
  • Increase sponsorship via banners (sponsor to attendee)
• Why mobile meeting apps helps users
  • Agenda info on smartphone or ipad
  • Easily connect with everyone at the conference
  • Have easy access to post event content
  • Carry less folders, papers, etc.
• How it can benefit a hotel
  • Could be a value add offering to earn business
  • Could help promote outlets (restaurants, spa, etc)
  • Could drive revenue (local area partners pay for exposure inside app)
  • Ability to move last minute group space to accommodate another incremental banquet)
• What’s in the development pipeline for the future
  • Incorporating a Spotme type navigation right into the app (find people in large space)
  • Use GPS analytics while users are inside app to track movements on a tradeshow floor
• How much does it costs to mobilize a meeting?
  • In the end we believe the apps should be free.  The cost to develop a simple functionality app available on the iphone, droid or blackberry can range from 10k to 100k.  However depending on the size of the conference and the amount of app functionality, we should be able to offset development costs with sponsorship dollar generation.  Earning much more than the app development costs is normal.

Here’s the conversation:

If you want to try some of this technology for your next meeting, I recommend you get in touch with Bryan via his website, Twitter, or Facebook.

Last week I met with Lawrence Coburn, CEO of San Francisco-based software company RateItAll, and an expert on location-based mobile services. His company is developing a new mobile application – DoubleDutch – that I think could significantly change the way hotels think about mobile marketing.

I frequently receive questions from people asking what their mobile strategy should be. Should they develop their own app? Should they rely on an online travel agency such as Expedia or Travelocity? Usually, neither of these paths is optimal. Creating a brand new application is impractical for the vast majority of hotels, and using another company’s tool doesn’t provide the level of branding and customization needed.

Plus, the principal opportunity I see in mobile is in service and cross-selling – not in new room bookings.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the primary business benefit of a service such as foursquare is that it drives loyalty and repeat customers. Users can check in whenever they visit a location: a new extension of the traditional hotel loyalty model. Management can reward the specific activities they’re trying to promote.

This is where a  tool such as DoubleDutch may come in. Designed to be white labeled for individual hotel groups, it could be completely branded and customized to yield the experience you want to provide. Lawrence describes it as “a mix of Yelp and Foursquare.” (Two of the hottest geo-location platforms in US mobile right now.)

Geolocation services are perfect for travel. When I arrive in a new city I want to know which places are best in my neighborhood.

Lawrence envisions the tool being used as a concierge application. Something that people can take around with them as they explore the city. The advantage of DoubleDutch over foursquare is that it is a completely branded experience. It allows you as a hotel to connect with the guests even when they’re not on your property. Relationships could be developed with local businesses for cross promotion. It lets you help guests discover new places, and even connect guests with each other. It’s all about discovery.

Additionally, the hotels could keep info on separate tabs in the application. This might be used to share special promotions, or just updates from your hotel blog.

The application can update  Twitter and Facebook, so there is a viral component built in to encourage word-of-mouth buzz.

I guess I like this so much because it combines next-generation technology with my core value: a concierge-approach to marketing. This new service-based style of mobile promotions is the future, and I expect it to go mainstream in the months ahead.

I’d really like to create a case study on this could work for a hotel, and Lawrence has agreed to arrange this. We need a few early adopters to give this a test.

Anyone here want to try this out for your hotels?

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with product managers at all the major travel industry mobile players.

Interestingly, their preference for distribution options ranges from “it doesn’t really matter” to “it really DOES matter”. Without naming names, there seems to be agreement on the advantages to both platforms:

Mobile websites:

• Updates are instantly available to the user (you can’t force updates with apps)
• Cross-platform functionality
• In-house developers can use existing skill sets
• Development time can be faster

Mobile phone apps:

• People don’t usually want to inccur data roaming charges when abroad
• Can be a higher level of functional reliability (no cross-browser issues)

For many hotels – especially independent properties – it’s a resource issue. A simple mobile website can be the most effective option.

Tip: If building an app isn’t a realistic option for you, consider OTAs to be a good partner for you on this.

Mobile marketing is going to be increasingly important for hotels in the months and years ahead, so this is something to plan now – if you haven’t done so already.

What is your mobile strategy?

[Photo credit: The Lightworks]

Google and Microsoft explain how consumers are interacting with mobile…and how suppliers can reach them.

Thomas O’Neil, Google Travel

Mobile landing pages: designing the user experience

• landing pages are evolving
• 4 great examples
  • Hotels.com/iPhone
    • being first moving has big advantage
    • have 1 million+ app downloads
  • m.toyota.com
  • m.cnn.com
  • iPhone.fandago.com
• key take-away: there needs to be optimized landing pages for the consumer
• not everyone has an smart phone…design for less
• search google webmasters: “mobile seo”
  • search algorithm is different for mobile sites

Mobile search: what consumers are doing

• not usually willing to do more than one search
• probably won’t go beyond top 2-3 search result listings
• they search for roughly the same amount of words…but search less often
• SEO is extremely important. If you’re not in the top 1-3 results, you may as well not even be there.

Advertising on the go: opportunities to reach individuals

• 4 types of Google advertising opportunities
  • WAP search
  • HTML search
  • content network (on other sites)
  • YouTube videos
• understand which apps your audience is using to choose advertising opportunities
• Google provides a high level of reporting options

Read more…

A few weeks ago Choice Hotels became the first major franchise to launch an application allowing guests to book their room from an iPhone. With the integration of GPS capabilities, street-view images and the ability to amend or cancel reservations, Choice has positioned itself in the forefront of the competition for business travelers.

Yet they are still just a quick step behind the Kayak booking portal, which 2 weeks earlier launched its iPhone capabilities. Marketed as a stranded traveler’s best friend, the application allows a guest to access a comprehensive comparison of flights and hotels.

The dot-mobi version of the site has a special feature where hotels can be sorted by the categories “cheap”, “close” and “classy” depending upon the nature of the stay. And once the property is located your guestroom is just a phone call away. Say goodbye to sleeping in airport terminals. With international search capabilities, Kayak is zooming to the top of global booking sites. There’s no doubt the competition will be following quickly.

Has your hotel reserved its’ dot-mobi website extension – and is now the time to develop your iPhone application? If not, at least be sure to check if your hotel be found on Kayak’s search engine.

Our Friday cool site of the week is an Amsterdam-based startup called 7scenes. Creative Director Ronald Lenz introduced the service during the PhoCusWright@ITB event.

Basically, it enables organizations to build tours that can be accessed on mobile phones. Users can take their phone out of their pocket, and see what’s around them. Content is downloaded on the go, and they can choose which tour they would like to take. From their website:

Consider the city an extension of your organisation, a fascinating place for you to publish and reach people in a different way. The city with all its (hidden) information is a beautiful stage filled with historic events, personal stories, cultural meaning, demographics, social relationships and much, much more. Something has occurred on every street corner and every brick can claim its own history.

Combining these surroundings, your content and phones that have made internet mobile and location aware (GPS), we can now interact with places in a whole new way! We are all about making these new experiences possible and offer a mobile and online platform that makes it easy to create, play and share GPS-based games and tours.

I think hotels could really build their brand value by developing customized tours of local attractions for their guests. As they say, the city you are located in is really an extension of your hotel. Make the destination exciting and interactive, and you’re subtly selling rooms.

To learn more about 7scenes, you can take a tour of how it works.

Highlights from panel discussion:

• Frequent travelers are usually the earlier adapters in mobile technology.
• Don’t just take your existing web content and adapt it to mobile. Create mobile-specific content.
• Notifications of travel changes is what makes the mobile platform unique.
• Many hotel booking systems are too complex to use on a mobile. Will the future bring saved payment/profile information that eases this process?
• In the US, 30% of iPhone users say it replaces their laptop usage
• In Japan, more people access internet on their mobile than with a traditional computer
• For many people in India and China, the mobile internet is their only access to the internet
• Web-based content could eliminate the need to for traditional smartphone apps. However, there are cases when it’s good to have an application that does not rely on internet access.
• The user doesn’t care of your service is an app or online, they only care about ease and speed of use
• Advantage of apps: you can use device-specific features (like iPhone location services)
• Travel suppliers are taking the lead in mobile innovation, not travel intermediaries
• International data roaming is a big barrier and issue to work around

Marriott Mobile

According to Advertising Age, Marriott Mobile generated $2 million in gross revenue since its August 2008 launch and the end of the year, with strong growth since the beginning of 2009. Omni Hotels and Hilton are reporting similar results.

I recommend you read this article by AdAge.com for some interesting statistics on which type of potential guest is most likely to reserve a room on their mobile.

If you’re thinking about trying this, see my thoughts on mobile marketing for hotels. It could well be an increasingly important distribution channel in the future.