21 January 2010 | Amon Cohen

Travel applications for mobile phones smooth the process for travellers and buyers. We describe four examples

An increasingly common sight at airport departure gates is passengers handing over their mobile phones for scanning before they board the aircraft. These travellers have downloaded a virtual boarding pass on to their phones when checking in online, so avoiding the need to show any paper. Twenty airlines, including British Midland and SAS, offer the facility at present and uptake is increasing. Another pioneer, Lufthansa, says it now has 30,000 users each week. A year ago, it was 30,000 a month.

Given that 70 per cent of business travellers – and rising – carry internet-enabled mobiles, according to research company PhoCusWright, it is unsurprising that applications for this market are starting to flow. These include not only boarding passes but information services such as weather reports, flight notifications and hotel locations.

However, less in evidence are applications for managed travel that assist the traveller but also conform with corporate travel policy and processes. Perhaps this is because corporations have regarded mobile technology to date with some distrust.

“There are some fears it will create even greater potential for travellers to depart from policy by putting the means to book independently literally in their pocket,” according to the 2010 Industry Forecast from the consultancy Advito.

The report encourages travel managers to embrace technology: “The key will be whether travel managers take control of the improved access that mobile [technology] offers to travellers, or surrender the field to unmanaged suppliers.

“One example is concierge-type services. When travellers land at a new destination, for example, it will become increasingly likely that they will look to their mobiles to seek information on services such as a ground transfer and a restaurant. Travel managers will need to find applications which push information about preferred suppliers to the traveller on arrival rather than allowing them to make totally unguided decisions.”

The good news is that such applications are beginning to emerge. Not only do they provide the services travellers need while on the move, they also help companies to apply policy constraints during the trip as well as before it, and to capture the all-important data. Four such applications are profiled below.

However, some caution is still needed, as many of the applications offered are not always tried and tested. It was notable, for example, when requests were made to interview customers using corporate travel apps for this article, that the marketing departments offered in return clients who were intending to use the technology, or who turned out to be IT partners of the suppliers, or offered no one at all. Caveat emptor, perhaps, but it would be wise not to ignore this new trend either.

TOOLS

4 Mobile travel applications

MAKING IT EASIER TO CHANGE ITINERARIES AND TRACK TRAVELLERS

1. Hotelzon

Hotel booking agency Hotelzon was one of the first companies to offer managed reservations with the introduction of a service for Nokia phones in September 2008. In November last year, booking also became possible on BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile platforms.

Travellers can make online reservations through their mobile as they would through their computer. Booking data is captured in a management information system.

Hotelzon chief executive Jani Kaskinen says: “It means they can make a booking in the middle of the night but leave an audit trail. Typically, travellers use the mobile option if their plans change during a trip. They can do it through their phone instead of having to open up their laptop.”

Travellers can also use the phone’s global positioning system (GPS) to locate hotels and call up maps to them.

2. Concur Mobile

The booking and expense management tool provider Concur Technologies has made an ambitious attempt to move the entire corporate travel process on to mobile. Like Hotelzon, Concur Mobile offers hotel booking through a BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile. If the traveller already has a flight reservation, he or she can access the itinerary and use the destination and dates of travel for a hotel booking. Concur says its customers can reschedule booked flights, although the technology is not able to accept new flight reservations. Other live booking options include restaurants, car hire and, in the US, taxis (see RideCharge, below).

In addition, phone users can add out-of-pocket expenses to their expense reports and use their phone cameras to photograph receipts and attach them to their claims. Line managers can also check and approve expense submissions.

3. RideCharge

RideCharge provides what might be the first fully automated mobile travel process, though only for taxi services. It starts with the traveller “hailing” the taxi through the RideCharge app. The taxi company identifies the traveller’s location through GPS and sends a car. While the traveller waits, he or she is kept informed of how near it is and receives an alert when it arrives.

After the journey, the traveller can pay on the mobile, with the money deducted from a credit card number stored with RideCharge. Customers can access management information via the RideCharge website. RideCharge has a partnership with Concur, which allows Concur clients’ travellers to upload e-receipts to their expense reports on their mobiles. RideCharge is available in 35 US cities, and president Sanders Partee plans to bring it to the UK this year. “Ground transportation is a just-in-time activity,” says Partee. “We are automating something people need when they are on the go.”

4. Nomadz

Nomadz is a traveller tracking and security alert service that uses GPS. Its competitors locate travellers by analysing reservations data made through travel agents’ booking systems, known as global distribution systems (GDSs). Nomadz says it finds travellers through the phone in their pocket.

David McLean, vice-president sales and marketing for World Travel Protection, the emergency medical and travel assistance subsidiary of insurer Zurich that developed Nomadz, says GDS-based tracking services are inadequate. “Just because you have a reservation to go somewhere, it doesn’t mean you are there,” he says. “Companies want to know precisely where a person is as well as where they are supposed to be.”

McLean says Nomadz can send travel alerts only to people for whom the information is relevant. Where GPS does not work (in heavy cloud cover, for example), a secondary system locates the traveller to within a couple of hundred yards through their proximity to mobile phone masts. Nomadz can also take GDS data as back-up.