• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 18, 2014

Kicking off the 2014 Mobile Insider Summit, Bill Keen, director, mobile solutions and emerging channels, InterContinental Hotels Group, discussed how the company tries to tailor its mobile offerings and strategy to how customers are using their phones in relation to travel. The three most important considerations for customers are: Where am I? (How do I get where I want to go); Acclimation (how the user starts to transact via mobile) and Travel is fun (how the hotel brand can help guests “celebrate” their stay.

“We think of those need states when developing our customer road map,” explained Keen. Beyond those basic factors, IHG tries to cater to how people search, shop and compare hotel and travel services. “Search is the holy grail of travel,” he noted, because it provides the most context about what consumers are looking for.  IHG, which encompasses eight hotel brands including Holiday Inn and Crown Plaza, maintains a presence through mapping, apps, different mobile operating systems and affiliate programs to reach users across the mobile landscape.