Why are airlines, travel agents, and tour operators best placed to deliver mobile services to travellers?

Airlines, travel agents, and tour operators have a huge advantage when it comes to providing a mobile experience for travellers.

And, I'm not talking about exposing a version of your booking engine through a mobile web-site ... I'm just not convinced there is a mass market for booking travel via your mobile phone (changing your booking and mobile check-in, I get ... but, not the initial booking).

The mobile travel experience ...

When people are travelling they tend to want specific information based on where they are and what they're doing at the time ...

• So, if I'm travelling to the airport, tell me if my flights on time, let me know how long I'll have to queue in security, and warn me of any traffic delays that could hamper my journey
• When I'm at the airport: if I'm bored,offer me some mobile games; if I like shopping, tell me where the best deals are in the airport stores. And, notify me when it's time to board.
• When I arrive at my destination, show me my car hire and hotel reservation details, so I don't have to worry about carrying bits of paper around with me.
• And, while I'm away: tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow, suggest a good restaurant, help me plan a family day out, tell me what's on at the theatre, and if I have a problem show me my travel insurance details and provide me with some emergency contact numbers.

Tap into impulse ...

Get this right and you'll deliver a service that your customer's truly value and that gives you a short term competitive advantage. And, by satisfying your customer's impulse wants and needs (e.g. restaurants, days out, entertainment) you'll tap into a new and lucrative ancillary revenue stream.

Itinerary gives location and context = relevant content

But, to deliver this type of mobile assistance, you need to understand the traveller's itinerary so you can adapt their experience based on knowledge of the person's current location and context.

This is where first generation mobile-web travel services fall down. Their lack of knowledge about the traveller and her itinerary places a heavy burden on the user to re-key data about their trip every time they want to access a service (e.g. flight information, weather). When navigating to information, no matter how useful, is time-consuming and painful, this doesn't make for a great user experience.

So, returning to my opening statement ... airlines, travel agents, and tour operators ... the guardians of booking data - have a huge advantage because they capture the itinerary information that forms the foundation of a compelling mobile travel experience. And, by providing mobile services that their customers truly value, they will create themselves new ancillary sales opportunities.