How mobile device-enabled travellers buy their travel differently?

Online travel company Priceline.com has released its first set of findings on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users who are booking hotel rooms through Priceline’s Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app.

“Early data supports the notion that mobile device-enabled travellers buy their travel differently compared to those on a desktop,” said priceline.com senior vice president John Caine, who is part of Priceline’s mobile development team.

“If this is the case, then travel companies may need to tweak existing offerings and technologies, or create entirely new ones to address this segment of the traveling community.”

Here are the key findings from Priceline’s early data on mobile-enabled customers:

• 2 percent of mobile device-enabled priceline.com customers booked their hotel rooms within 1 day of arrival, compared to 45 percent among priceline.com's non-mobile Name Your Own Price hotel customers.
• 58 percent of mobile device-enabled priceline.com customers were within 20 miles of their hotel at the time of booking (35 percent were within 1 mile of their hotel). This suggests that those customers had already arrived at their destination before making their reservation.
• 79 percent of mobile device-enabled priceline.com customers booked stays of only 1 night, versus 62 percent for non-mobile Name Your Own Price hotel customers.
• 82 percent of mobile device-enabled priceline.com customers chose hotels of a 3-star or higher quality level. 75 percent of non-mobile priceline.com Name Your Own Price hotel customers choose hotels of 3 stars or higher.

To sample booking trends among mobile device users, priceline.com looked at a two-week sampling of app activity and compared it to customers using desktop computers to book through priceline.com's online hotel service.