Mobile disruption and staying ahead of the curve
Teletext chairman Steve Endacott explains the thinking behind the company’s phone-to-book strategy in a mobile dominated world in which brand is more important than ever.
The global online conference PhoCusWright held in Los Angeles in November gave some excellent insights into how the migration of search traffic to mobile devices was impacting the developed and emerging markets quiet differently.
In emerging markets, most users have bi-passed desktop computers and are using their phones as the primary computing device.
Here, the App has become the preferred user experience, which in turn has led to an all-out war between travel players attempting to dominate the app-download space. The logic is that once customers have entered the walled garden of the app world brand loyalty is very high, leading to less comparative shopping and higher conversion levels.
With most users limiting their use of apps to a few dominant favourites, it’s easy to see why this race in emerging online super powers such as China and India is so important.
However, there are some less obvious trends driven by the mobile migration, which in my opinion mean the travel sector is entering another period of disruptive evolution.
As usual, Google and how its customer interfaces work will be a key driver of change. For example, recent Google stats show that since 2012 the amount of SEO traffic delivered by a number-one SEO ranking position has dropped from 47% of clicks to just 20%, with paid-for clicks taking a larger share of traffic.
Read the full story at TravelWeekly UK