On Monday, two of the Wild Dogs will be at World Travel Market in London, along with 50,998 others from the travel industry. As well as meeting people and checking out the trends and industry issues, we’ll be taking the stage at 5.30 on the Travel Forward theatre for our research talk, “The more they use it, the less they do: addressing the mobile issue in specialist travel”
It’s an interesting slot – sandwiched between the end of a long day of networking and getting the train home (or heading to the bar). But for those lucky enough to stick around, we’ll be talking through our brand new research into the role of mobile for specialist travellers and how it ties into some new technology developments.
The research was borne out of a nagging feeling that mobile design was suffering as a result of industry obsession with speed, convenience.
Whilst it’s great that mobile users can book a hotel room in 8 seconds with 4 taps of their phone, for some travellers, that’s not the be all and end all. We started doing some digging, and we found that mobile traffic was increasing across the board in specialist travel. No surprises there, but what came out consistently was that these users were doing less – spending less time, viewing fewer pages, taking fewer actions.
It wasn’t immediately clear the extent to which this was a problem. If you’re looking for a once-in-a-lifetime safari, or a guided expedition along the Silk Road, the chances are you’re not going to book it online, let alone on a mobile. You’ll want to speak to someone, ask questions, and have it tailored to your needs.
But that doesn’t mean you’re not going to use a mobile at some stage. So we commissioned some research to find out how specialist travellers used mobile, what role it played in the purchase journey, and how the current experience was delivering on their needs.
To find out what they said, and what that could mean for mobile design, come along to the Travel Forward stage on Monday afternoon to hear the research. It’s not giving too much away to say that there’s work to be done.
We’ll be publishing a paper on the findings soon, so to request a copy please email tom@wilddogdesign.co.uk or call the pack to find out more.
The more they use it, the less they do: addressing the mobile issue in specialist travel
