Expedia's Xavier Sees Mobile As Key Travel Aid

ExpediaMobile has had a major impact on the travel industry, and the growing adoption of smartphones and tablets will likely increase the influence it has on consumers' travel habits. As one of the biggest online travel brands, Expedia is making mobile a focus of its growth strategy through apps, including TripAssist, Expedia Hotels and FlightTrack, as well as on the mobile Web.

MediaPost caught up with Jeremy Xavier, vice president of marketing for mobile products at Expedia, to discuss how the company is responding to a more device-driven world. Xavier joined the company when Expedia acquired travel app developer Mobiata in 2010.

MP: What kind of use are you seeing for Expedia mobile properties in terms of booking activity?

JX: There's an overall trend where we have 70% of our bookings for mobile being same-night, in-market. A lot of people are actually using mobile products in-trip. They book hotel rooms for that night and use FiightTrack on the way to the airport. Mobile is really the traveler's tool.

MP: So mobile is better suited to on-the-fly services rather than trip planning?

JX: In mobile, people get exactly what they need and get out. At present, we're not building experiences that people are going to browse forever on a mobile device. That's something that will change over time.

MP: What about tablet use? Is that somewhere between the smartphone and PC?

JX: Tablet usage isn't as much at this point. But we think that's going to be more like the desktop experience. Now, they’ll just say, “Hey, I'll bring my iPad, I can do my email, play some games, and that's all I'll need.” We’re going to make sure we offer a really good experience on tablets as well.

MP: I wondered if you saw the Nielsen post this week showing 95% of time spent in mobile travel is in apps rather than the Web. Are you seeing that dramatic a discrepancy in favor of apps at Expedia? 

JX: I did see that. While our app downloads and traffic are definitely growing month to month, we see massive bookings via the mobile Web. As I mentioned, the majority of rooms booked via mobile are for the same night. People often quickly open the browser and search for things like "Room in Las Vegas." Nielsen shows what we know to be true: more people are looking for apps to consume, transact and entertain. 

MP: What's your approach to marketing Expedia apps?

JX: Work closely with Apple and Google. Try to get the Android team at Google, and the team at Apple really excited, and if you do, then you'll get featured. Any developer will tell you getting featured in Google Play or the iTunes App Store is going to be huge for downloads. The other thing we pursue is a social strategy. The great thing about mobile is it's digital, so if people are on Twitter or Facebook and talking about the app, you can click through and get to an app store very quickly. There's also PR and performance marketing, so we try to hit all the bases.

Where it gets really interesting, for mobile, is how to target people to re-engage. That might be through email, our newsletter, or if you've booked a trip with Expedia, you'll see a prompt in the confirmation e-mail to check us out in mobile.

MP: Expedia just launched a free version of the FlightTrack app for iOS and Android. Can you talk about any other mobile projects in the works?

JX: One of the things you'll see are in-trip tools. That's where you have gaps in your itinerary, and we might be able to suggest something, or different things where we could help you along the way to enhance your trip.

MP: Since most Expedia apps are free, have you introduced any third-party advertising within apps?

JX: We don't have advertising in any of our apps. We pay a lot of attention to design and user experience. As a guiding principle, we're just not really interested in having ads. 

1 comment about "Expedia's Xavier Sees Mobile As Key Travel Aid".
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  1. John McAuliffe from VFM Leonardo, September 3, 2012 at 8:58 p.m.

    The study you reference from Neilsen actually states that the distribution of time spent on mobile is 69% for web and 31% for App for hotel accomodation. Giving the impression of 95% app for this industry is wrong. There are many things about the Expedia study that are flawed not the least is the impression they give that mobile is simply for booking accomodations within 24 hours of the search. When it comes to hotels consumers are using the mobile channel for every stage of the shopping journey - research, shop, buy and share... most apps do not do a good job on anything but the booking channel so consumers are using mobile web instead.

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