More travellers finding mobile devices essential

[Lite Beer]

More travellers finding mobile devices essential
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- TRAVELLERS are using mobile devices more and more throughout their journey, from research to booking to the trip itself and beyond, according to a new report by TripAdvisor.

The report focuses on "connected travellers", defined as those who have used a smartphone to plan or book a trip, and provides in-depth insight into their habits and behaviour.

Key findings of the study were that 45 per cent of connected travellers usually use their smartphones to book activities for a trip, almost three-quarters (72 per cent) use their smartphones to look for restaurants while on vacation, and a third (34 per cent) want their accommodation to offer mobile check-in.

The report is part of the larger TripBarometer study, conducted on behalf of TripAdvisor by independent research firm Ipsos and reporting on more than 44,000 global responses from travellers and the hotel sector.

"The 'TripBarometer: Connected Traveller' report uncovers key emerging trends among a growing segment of travellers," said Adam Medros, senior vice president of product at TripAdvisor.

"While booking travel via mobile is ultimately on the rise for all travellers, for the connected traveller, smartphones are the essential travel companion.

Through travel apps, connected travellers are finding their way around, looking for places to eat or things to do and reading reviews. They are also more likely to see their smartphones as a booking device, both before a trip and while in-destination."

Mobile bookings on the rise

Mobile applications are becoming more popular as a booking channel - according to the report, the number of people using mobile apps to book their accommodation has doubled year over year. In 2014, 4 per cent of TripBarometer respondents booked their accommodation using a mobile app - that proportion has risen to 8 per cent this year. This increases to 11 per cent for the connected-traveller segment.

Those who book via mobile apps are habitual users, with 24 per cent saying they usually book this way. One-fifth of connected travellers say they booked via a mobile app because it was easier or faster to access and 29 per cent felt they got a better price.

Looking strictly at the device used to make a booking, connected travellers are twice as likely as global travellers to make travel-related bookings via a mobile device.

Laptops and personal computers are still the most commonly used devices for hotel bookings, with 50 per cent of connected travellers using a laptop and 32 per cent using a PC to book the accommodation for their most recent trip. But what's interesting is that 12 per cent of connected travellers booked their accommodation via a smartphone, compared with 6 per cent of global travellers.

The trend towards mobile platforms for bookings is even more apparent when it comes to travel activities, where the smartphone becomes the second-most-popular booking device after laptops - 45 per cent of connected travellers say they use their smartphones to book activities for their trip, while 55 per cent say they use a laptop.

This is where connected travellers really start to differentiate themselves, as only 28 per cent of global travellers use their smartphone to book things to do before a trip.

Smartphone as essential |trip companion

Connected travellers are more likely to want their smartphones with them on vacation to organise their trip more efficiently (44 per cent) and book accommodation on the go (37 per cent). They are also more likely than the average traveller to use their smartphone for travel research while in their destination: 72 per cent of connected travellers use their mobile to look for restaurants, 67 per cent use it to find things to do and 64 per cent use it to read reviews.

South America has the highest proportion of connected travellers with 57 per cent of TripBarometer respondents from the region falling into the connected-traveller segment. The Middle East (55 per cent) and Asia (49 per cent) follow close behind.

However, looking at individual countries, Thailand and China lead the trend, with 65 per cent of Thai and Chinese TripBarometer respondents identified as connected travellers. More than half (55 per cent) of all global travellers planning a visit to Thailand in the next 12 months are connected travellers.

China can expect the highest proportion of connected travellers visiting that market this year. Sixty-one per cent of TripBarometer respondents planning a visit to China over the next 12 months are connected travellers.

Fifty-seven per cent of travellers visiting Australia, 55 per cent visiting Thailand, and 54 per cent visiting Italy are connected travellers.

Britain, Germany, the United States and Spain can each expect 53 per cent of their inbound visitors over the next 12 months to be connected travellers.

All travellers say they find it useful for their hotel to offer adapters, converters and a variety of chargers to save them from having to bring their own. However, the gap starts to widen between the requirements of connected travellers and the average traveller when it comes to services more closely related to smartphone connectivity.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of all connected travellers would enjoy an app to book things through while on their trip (compared with 38 per cent of global travellers) and a third (34 per cent) would find mobile check-in useful (compared with 28 per cent of global travellers).

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/More-travellers-finding-mobile-devices-essential-30263750.html

-- The Nation 2015-07-04

[emilymat]

"Connected travellers are much more likely than average travellers....etc. etc.".

Jeez, what is the world coming to. There was a time when people went on holiday to relax and get away from it all. This article suggests the 'savvy' traveller has no chance of enjoying themselves unless they have a 'mobile platform' of some sort in their hand.

I do not feel inadequate because I do not have a smartphone, but perhaps I'm just in the minority.

[quandow]

I used to be one of those stodgy farts - you know the type - "I only use a phone for one thing, making calls. Don't need all that fancy stuff, blah blah blah." Maybe you're on of them.

Then my son came to visit. We were looking for "Dream Teen Massage" but just couldn't quite find it. My son whipped out his phone (a Samsung), spoke into it, and three seconds later up popped a map. After a very pleasant experience at that massage place, I had a similar phone in my possession within the hour.

It has proven itself invaluable ever since. The Google translate feature has never failed me going from English to Thai, I've been able to take pix to find repair parts for home hardware and computer parts, this little phone has paid for itself many times over.

[BudRight]

With my smartphone I can,

Find any information ever written down by a human.

Listen to any song ever published.

Know wherever I am on Earth and see a map of that place.

Contact any similarly equipped person in the world for free.

Move money between continents by tapping my finger.

Take pictures and movies without ever running out of film.

That's why people have these phones. Because they do what 30 years ago would have been so amazing that it would require superpowers or magic.

Edited July 4, 2015 by BudRight

[Lissos]

What it boils down to is that all us managed to travel in the era before internet and it is still no problem to do so. All that has happened is that personal internet connectivity has empowered travellers. At one stage newbies were lambs to the slaughter for local scammers unless they had obtained a guidebook (by which time the guidebook was probably give years out of date already and wasn't up with the latest local scams).

At one stage, travellers could check into a guesthouse and have absolutely no idea of the lion's mouth they had just paid for, until the issues revealed themselves. Now you can read reviews of guesthouses and they have to make some effort now image wise as feedback can make it break places now. All this has been a positive change in my opinion. At one stage, you could easily be swayed by locals to go to certain areas of a country that were dodgy, as they had a personal commercial interest in their 'advice'. Now you can get a second, a third, a fourth opinion for any decisions that you make.

The flip side of this of course is that when things go so smoothly and 'surprise' free, somehow travel can lose some adventure if approached like military operation. It is quite easy now to avoid all sorts of pitfalls en route, but that leads to less 'stories'

[wabothai]

wow, tripadvisor has some real good news again.

[impulse]

With my smartphone I can,

Find any information ever written down by a human.

Great. What's the phone number of that cutie I met in Houston in 2006? She wrote it on a napkin.

Seriously, I agree, they're just plain handy to have. If I had one in 2006, I would have had a permanent record of her phone number... (But that may not have ended well, anyway)

The thing I lament is the way people live their entire lives on the little screen, rarely looking up at the real world they're traveling through- physically and metaphorically.

Edited July 4, 2015 by impulse

[coulson]

"Connected travellers are much more likely than average travellers....etc. etc.".

Jeez, what is the world coming to. There was a time when people went on holiday to relax and get away from it all. This article suggests the 'savvy' traveller has no chance of enjoying themselves unless they have a 'mobile platform' of some sort in their hand.

I do not feel inadequate because I do not have a smartphone, but perhaps I'm just in the minority.

You are in the minority, and if you made the jump you would realize what you've been missing. Smartphones are absolutely awesome and useful but extremely addictive.

Smartphone users, to those that don't use them, are the scourge of social society for one. Restaurant owners suffer a loss because orders now take an average of 30-45 minutes longer due to selfie/ facebook/ IG/ checking in and photographing sessions during each course, waiting staff now need to waste time taking photo's of patrons. Coffee shops are now a place where you go to work alone, write your blog or send long emails using the free wifi, and backpackers/ travellers are spending more time updating their IG/ facebook/ travelblog so it looks cooler than the actual trip they are experiencing. The obsession with reporting on what one is doing and anxiously awaiting the acceptance or acknowledgement through 'likes' has gotten really out of hand.

Smartphones have made it so convenient for travelers to get around with gps maps, agoda on the go, instant messaging and other real time functions that you are led to believe you have more time to 'enjoy' your valuable experience, but the increase in use also leads to an increase in dependence. Battery packs, usb chargers & spares are in every travellers bag and most won't spend 5 minutes in a restaurant before asking to plug in.

I have a smartphone and I cannot live without it, living overseas you need to use apps to stay in touch. I did however dump facebook 2 years ago and got a series of emails asking why I blocked people (some people are really insecure), was asked why I committed 'facebook suicide' (it even has a term) and was everything ok. During the first 2 weeks not using social media I was shocked what I saw when I went out with friends. I kept reaching for my phone thinking I needed to use it and then putting it back, those moments I would normally check something I noticed everyone else had their heads down frantically two hand typing. It was a mild withdrawal and made me slightly uneasy - felt I was missing out, needed a fix of something. It was almost like quitting smoking.

I now use my phone for little other than occasional IG uploads, email, travel bookings and video communication. When I go on holidays I do not use data at all, it is very liberating to make phone calls and stick to plans. My friends have called it a 'cyber detox', and keep bringing it up...........when you words like 'detox' or 'suicide' you think about some form of drug abuse, despite being a relatively harmless and accepted phenomenon. The use of smartphones has created an enormous psychological dependence that keeps everyone plugged in, not to mention the ability for the big guns to study your behavior and sell the data too. (Read googles privacy agreement).

As far as travellers requiring them, sure, everything at your fingertips, useful no end. Its when those same tw@ds pull out their selfie stick and take mundane videos of their group walking through a shopping mall I ask myself what poor fool is going to end up subjected to that video and is it really necessary.

[Lissos]

It does seem that South East Asians and East Asians are the biggest addicts of these things, along with the overbearing narcissism of selfie stick over usage. On the BTS it often seems like I'm the only who is actually where he is, alert to where he is.

Everyone else is in that neck strain position, flicking rapidly between a multitude of apps, facial expressions of amusement or knitted brow interacting with known people in a virtual world, completely blocking out the unknown people and current environment.

The selfie stick thing is also getting out of hand. When you mentioned people updating to present a version of their travel different to what they were actually experiencing it reminded me of a couple of Koreans in a museum using the selfie stick, fixing an inane false joy on their face and then doing about 15 takes where this joy vanished immediately as they rushed to seriousky review the photo on the camera before playing this game over and over again until they got what they wanted to 'present' to followers.

That was only one example of what has been seen, observing this phenomenon.

[emilymat]

I have read the posts on here, including the one that suggested I might be a stodgy fart.

Well, I just want to make it clear my post was in relation to the language of the OP, where it somehow implied 'ordinary' travellers were almost second class.

I have read all the useful things people can do with these devices - I hesitate to call them I phones as they appear to be hand held computers with the facility to make phone calls. Some of the posts refer to the 'addiction' of these devices and that is a club I simply do not want to join, as demonstrated to me by a family of four - clearly on holiday - at the buffet last week. All of them were on their 'phones' and not even talking.

At the same time I accept they are obviously extremely useful for accessing specific information as pointed out in examples given by a couple of the posts . So, I guess it's a draw.

[Lissos]

Some of the posts refer to the 'addiction' of these devices and that is a club I simply do not want to join, as demonstrated to me by a family of four - clearly on holiday - at the buffet last week. All of them were on their 'phones' and not even talking.

I feel this is one of the reasons why service attitude in some areas is going to s**t in Thailand when so many teenage daughters of mom and pop (as posters seem to refer to small eateries) places are placed at front line customer level with disastrous sulky consequences. I've lost count now of how many times I've walked into places (and not just food places) to be totally ignored as they are completely dedicated to whatever twattery they are up to on their smartphones.