Over the past few years, Industry experts have projected staggering growth rates in leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings via the mobile channel: from $753 million in 2011 to $1.4 million in 2012, according to PhoCusWright research. And yet, a careful analysis of all the industry stats and projections reveals a very interesting picture: The majority of the mobile bookings, roomnights and revenue are generated by tablet devices, not by smartphones.

Mobile and tablet devices and their respective marketing and distribution channels should be treated as separate device categories. Three distinct device categories constitute the three screens to which hoteliers should pay special attention in 2013: desktop, mobile and tablet.

Search engines and many major media sites already consider tablets as a distinct device category, characterized by its own unique user behaviour and best practices for user experience and content delivery. Here’s why:

Internet user behaviour  Internet users exhibit different behavioural patterns when browsing the Internet. For all practical purposes, the desktop, mobile device and tablet all address different needs at different times of the day and week. According to Google, users searching Google utilize desktop during the day (office); mobile during lunch break and happy hour; and tablet later in the evening when lounging.

According to Google’s data, 7% of all searches in 2012 already come from tablets versus 14% from mobile devices and 79% via desktops. Google also reports different search dynamics across the three device/channel categories and a dramatic increase in hotel queries in the mobile and tablet channels.

Expedia Media Solutions and comScore conducted “The Rise of Mobile: Adoption, Sentiment & Opportunity” study in August 2012, and found that more than three-quarters of US travelers had purchased travel on a PC in the past six months. On mobile devices, travelers were much more hesitant to book travel: Only 34% had booked travel through their tablet in that timeframe, and 28% had booked via smartphone.

Breaking down these purchases by travel category, the Expedia and comScore study also found that more than half of these US travelers purchased hotel reservations via laptop, while only 17% booked hotels via tablet, and 11% via smartphone. Likewise, 46% of air travelers purchased flights on their PC, but only about one in 10 used either tablets or smartphones to buy airfare in the past six months.

These bigger travel buys via mobile devices trail PC purchases by a wide margin; however, travelers were about as likely to make in-destination travel bookings—such as attractions, activities and restaurants—through tablets or smartphones as through a computer. Notably, a minimum of about one in 10 travelers used mobile devices for nearly all types of travel bookings, regardless of price.

The always-on-the-go mobile user requires short, slimmed-down and straight-to-the-point content: hotel location, maps and directions, summary of the hotel product, easy to use mobile booking engine, and a click-to-talk property reservation number. Hence the need for a mobile website with specialized content.

Tablet users require deep, visually enhanced content about the property, its product and destination, etc. Unfortunately, the desktop website cannot accommodate the touch-screen navigation required by tablet devices along with the high-resolution photography and highly visual presentation necessary to display the hotel product.

The truth is that due to usability and security issues, six of every seven mobile bookings actually happen via the voice channel. Very few people are comfortable entering their credit-card information into their phone in a public place. Very few travel websites provide an alternative to guaranteeing your booking without entering your credit card.

In contrast, tablet users have no issues booking a travel service via their device. A well-structured, highly visual tablet-optimized website can generate conversion rates several times higher than those of mobile devices. Across HeBS Digital’s hotel client portfolio, tablets generate 200% more roomnights and 430% more revenue than the «pure» mobile devices.

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Tablets are portable yet stationary devices. They are predominantly used indoors with a high-speed Internet connection or with innovative formula as the one which provides for the first time ConnectedtoGo, letting the travel to combine its WiFi Everywhere proposal with Ultraportable Tablets, configured as Travel Companions

Google projects an overall increase in number of search queries by 24% in 2013, but search data differs dramatically across the three device categories. Searches from mobile devices will experience an increase of 68%, while searches from tablets will increase by more than 180%. Desktop searches will experience a decline of 4%.

So what should travel brands do to get ready for the three-screen battle in 2013?

Begin by treating the desktop, mobile and tablet as three separate channels.

  1. Desktop website. Make sure your desktop website is «in good health,» in order to comply with best practices in hotel distribution and to adhere to the industry’s best practices for design, site architecture and search-engine optimization. Most importantly, make sure it is compatible with the recent Google Panda and Freshness algorithm updates.
  2. Mobile website. A mobile website generates incremental revenue through mobile and voice reservations which, without a well-optimized, content-rich, property-specific mobile site,
  3. Tablet website. According to eMarketer, global tablet sales are projected to exceed 232 million in 2016, growing from 64 million in 2011. In 2013, there will be 75.6 million U.S. tablet users, up from 13 million in 2010. Hotel marketers should consider either enhancing their desktop website for the touch-screen tablet environment or building a tablet-only version of their website in addition to their desktop and mobile sites, which all should be managed via a single digital content depository-enabled content management system.

All three channels must be integrated in the travel brand multi-channel marketing strategy. The future is now ¡¡