People across the globe are spending more time on their mobile phones than ever before. As they travel to and from work or relax on the sofa after a stressful day, they might be looking at the news, checking Facebook or organising their online banking.
However, a large proportion of them may also be researching travel ideas and looking to book accommodation – and that’s where your hotel comes in.If you are to capitalise on this exponential rise in mobile devices, you need to ensure that your property’s online offerings can be viewed easily and used effectively by people on their smartphones.But how can you do this? Here are some top tips that might assist you.
1.A need for speed Pioneers of internet use might have waited what felt like forever for a page to load, but their modern-day counterparts certainly won’t. According to surveys by Gomez.com and Akamai, almost half of web users expect sites to load in two seconds or less – and they’ll abandon one that hasn’t loaded in three.Remember that attention spans are short when it comes to mobile, so ensure all of your pages load up quickly and properly. We’ve got more in-depth details on how to do this in our archive of articles, but it might involve things like removing flash and compressing images.
2.Check for responsiveness Pages designed to be viewed on desktop computers won’t necessarily work on mobiles, so you need to keep a close eye on this for your hotel. If pages aren’t displaying as they should, you’ll need to design new ones especially for mobile devices. It’s essential that the content you want people to see responds to the size of the screen they’re trying to view it on, or they’ll just leave.Also, don’t forget that this must continue to the hotel booking engine – everything has got to be mobile-friendly and fully integrated.
3.Optimisation is keyOnce you’ve ensured that your mobile site works from a technical point of view, you must also optimise your content specifically for mobile devices. Remember that large chunks of text and tiny forms don’t translate well to tiny screens and adapt them accordingly. Again, this is something we’ve covered in-depth quite recently so you can read up in our archives if you want more information, but it involves prioritising your key messages and keeping pages really simple.
4.Capitalise on the last-minute bookersMany of the people using their phones for travel plans might be keen on last-minute breaks – according to Statisticbrain, 65 per cent of same-day hotel reservations are made on mobile devices. Your hotel can make the most of this by publicising late deals on the mobile site and also drawing people in with special deal advertisements on social media that link up with your mobile offerings.Remember to make it really easy for people to make swift decisions by showcasing exactly what they could be enjoying and providing a clear, persuasive call to action, followed by a quick and efficient booking process.
As you can see, there are plenty of tricks and techniques you can use to make your site mobile-friendly, ensuring you keep up with the competition.
For hotel revenue management and digital marketing solutions, check out World Hotel Marketing
