You don't need to know my exact location to provide me with relevant information

I regularly read Alex Bainbridge's Travel Musings blog, so I was particularly interested to read his post about location based services for travel suppliers.

I like his idea of providing a service in resort, where tour operators can use location and mobile to provide holiday-makers with a support service that works in tandem with their existing holiday reps.

For online travel agents and airlines, who don't have in-resort reps, I think mobile and location can go one step further ... acting as a virtual rep ... providing travellers with relevant, contextual information and advice throughout their trip.

But, the thing I liked most in Alex's post was his comment that "it not about knowing exactly where someone is".

Exactly!

Knowing that someone is in Malaga is enough to allow me to filter the information I provide them (location-based). Knowing they are in Malaga on business allows me to further refine the information I provide (context-sensitive). And, if I know they're only in Malaga until Friday, then I can use this information to make the conversation even more relevant (time-critical).

I keep harping on about this ... but the information needed to create a really useful, relevant dialogue with travellers is the information travel companies already collect when they take a booking. A conversation based on this booking data that is time-sensitive, location-based, and context-sensitive is far more valuable than a conversation based on knowing my location with pinpoint accuracy ... but with zero knowledge of who I am or why I'm there.