How travel brands are prioritizing mobile app engagement

Whereas mobile browser visitors nonetheless has worth for travel firms,
they are more and more working to steer clients to their brands’ mobile apps. The reason is easy – apps give brands entry to information and alternatives for personalization, for instance by way of related alerts or customer support chats.

The app “lets you have a extra
direct and longer lasting relationship with a buyer,” says Jon Gieselman, president of Expedia Brands at Expedia Group.

And vacationers are responding – all
the brands interviewed for this text say they’ve seen appreciable progress in app engagement lately.

Within the
third quarter of 2022, Expedia hit an “all-time excessive” of quarterly energetic app customers, with a 40% enhance
from 2019. The Vrbo mobile app was probably the most
downloaded iOS travel app in the United States, in response to Apptopia.

Getting
customers to obtain the app “is simply the beginning,” Gieselman says.

“You
should present compelling causes for purchasers to maintain coming again and product
options they’ll’t stay with out,” reminiscent of “app-exclusive instruments,” he explains.

Expedia
lately launched a brand new Value Monitoring and Predictions function within the mobile app that makes use of machine studying to inform vacationers about flight worth adjustments
and predicts the very best time to purchase. Expedia members additionally earn twice the
factors when reserving their journey on the app and might benefit from app-exclusive
promotions and gross sales a number of occasions a yr, Gieselman
says.

Subsequent yr,
Expedia will launch One Key, a unified loyalty program that spans Expedia brands, together with
Expedia, Resorts.com and Vrbo. Members will get “unique incentives for utilizing
the app,” Gieselman says.

Additionally
in 2023, Expedia plans to roll out extra instruments in its app, together with
Journey Boards, which permit vacationers to collaborate on journeys and Value
Drop Safety, an elective add-on that mechanically gives a refund if a
buyer’s ticket worth drops earlier than their travel date.

Apps linked to loyalty

Tripadvisor rebuilt its
mobile app “from the bottom up” in 2020, and it’s a “important half” of buyer
acquisition and elevated member engagement, in response to Tripadvisor CMO John Boris.

App use gives Tripadvisor
with entry to anonymized first-party person information, enabling the corporate to
higher serve vacationers, together with in-destination, “the place we are able to put our
location information to work to ship a greater Tripadvisor person expertise,” Boris says.

App use additionally drives
long-term loyalty, Boris provides: “We all know that our
most loyal and invaluable customers are our app customers. They evaluation extra typically, are a
extra energetic a part of our neighborhood and finally monetize higher on a per-user
foundation.”

Company travel brands are additionally prioritizing app engagement. Travel administration firm CWT introduced a $100 million investment into its
digital platforms, together with its app, in November 2021.

CWT has delivered greater than 30 product enhancements over the previous yr,
together with enabling individuals to share their journeys and join with colleagues and
including carbon emissions info and eco-friendly resort labels to permit “vacationers
to make actually knowledgeable choices concerning the impression of the alternatives that are making,” says Erica Antony, CWT’s chief product officer.

CWT’s mobile app utilization has climbed 90% yr over yr, which
features a spike in communication with CWT’s counselors.

“You
would possibly begin [in the app] with serving to your self or attempting to get easy duties finished. However when it
turns into extra complicated or it turns into extra pressing or delicate, finally I would like
to succeed in an individual,” Antony says.

The app additionally offers CWT a strategy to assess buyer habits, she provides:
“We are able to begin to see what varieties of actions are they acting at totally different
occasions of the day, totally different occasions of the week, what varieties of duties are they
attempting to finish?”

App recognizing customers

At American Express Global Business Travel, the mobile app has seen an uptick in on-trip use in
specific, which incorporates alerts about flight delays, flight adjustments and gate
adjustments, in response to the travel administration firm’s vp of world product technique and
person expertise, Mark McSpadden.

The app “gives offline content material very well,” McSpadden
says.

“We all know that through the travel journey, there are occasions whenever you
don’t have connectivity. And so to have the ability to have the details about your
flight, about your resort, about your floor transportation there in a platform
that’s accessible even with out connectivity is absolutely necessary.”

As a result of that authentication is already in place, we all know who you are and might instantly get to servicing you in your present context

Mark McSpadden – Amex GBT

Authentication mechanisms reminiscent of biometrics, face ID and
fingerprint create belief and provides the corporate helpful info
that helps them higher serve the client.

“As a result of that authentication is already in place, we all know who you
are and might instantly get to servicing you in your present context,” McSpadden
says. “We are able to begin inferring what you would possibly want.”

Amex GBT’s app connects the traveler to the traveler supervisor
by way of messaging. The corporate additionally added
a function that enables customers to share their flight standing with colleagues, pals
or household by way of a novel URL for his or her flight.

The corporate is within the strategy of including sustainability metrics to
the mobile app that may let vacationers see the carbon impression not solely on the
time of buy, however of their total travel, in response to McSpadden, with completion anticipated by the top of the yr.

Competing with 79 different apps

At Booking.com, “an app-first strategy is
essential to success in our now mobile-dominated world,” says Arjan Dijk, senior vice
president and CMO.

The Reserving.com
app was among the many most-installed travel apps in each america and the
United Kingdom in 2021, in response to the corporate. Within the third quarter of this
yr, about 45% of Reserving’s room nights have been booked by way of its
apps, a rise of greater than 10% in comparison with 2019.

Reservations made within the app signify the vast majority of Reserving’s total mobile bookings, Dijk
says. Over the course
of the yr Reserving.com has additionally seen the app repeatedly set new information for
month-to-month energetic customers.

The Reserving mobile app will get “the
strongest direct repeat buyer habits” when in comparison with our different platforms
like desktop or mobile net, and the vast majority of bookings on the mobile app are made
by members of Reserving’s loyalty program, Genius,” he says.

However Dijk says a single app is competing
with, on common, 79 different apps on a client’s mobile system, so merely present
there’s not sufficient. Corporations have to preserve reminding customers
why they need to use the app, he says, and Reserving is exploring new advertising and marketing channels reminiscent of paid Fb and YouTube advertisements.

Hugh Aitken, vp of flights at Skyscanner,
says app customers are a “self-selecting group.”

“Folks select to obtain our app, and
importantly, preserve it on the mobile system,” Aitken says. “We do see good retention on app, individuals coming in and downloading
it, but additionally partaking with it and carrying on partaking with it.”

The Skyscanner app reveals not solely flights to Miami, for instance, but additionally
lodges and automobiles “so individuals can begin to see the entire journey,” moderately than
having to modify between apps or tabs. And the app offers vacationers concepts, inspiration and
recommendation that they need from Skyscanner, he provides.