Hotel concierge applications are becoming a must-have for major hospitality brands seeking to tap into guests’ smartphones to anticipate their needs before arrival on premises.  Hospitality marketers’ recent embracing of mobile technology has prompted many hotel brands to employ their own or third-party concierge solutions to drive room service ordering and easy communication with staff in a bid to personalize guest stays even more. Experts also suggest that teaming up with a third-party vendor is a smarter solution than marketers attempting to create their own branded experience, although SMS can still play a critical role.

Booking.com is joining forces with global multimedia publisher Time Out to roll out a native campaign featuring social media influencers to fuel mobile bookings from spontaneous millennial travelers. The partnership, which is set to span six weeks, aims to encourage travel enthusiasts to indulge their wanderlust and use the Booking.com mobile application to make last-minute bookings for hotel accommodations. The campaign will be featuring famous bloggers and Instagram influencers from the United States and Britain, who will use Booking.com for their spur-of-the-moment travels, which will be documented on Time Out.

Reckitt Benckiser, the consumer goods business, anticipates that in future almost one third of its sales in India will come via mobile commerce, a leading executive has said. Nitish Kapoor, regional director at Reckitt Benckiser South Asia, made the remarks in conversation with the editor-in-chief of Businessworld at the launch of the latter's Marketing Whitebook. Kapoor noted that currently ecommerce accounted for maybe only 0.5% of all FMCG sales in India, a proportion that was predicted to grow to anywhere between 3% and 5% over the next five years, Exchange4Media reported.

Citi’s brand-new iPhone application takes a significant step forward in further streamlining mobile banking with the integration of Touch ID and Apple Watch. The Citi Mobile App for iPhone in the United States has been completely redesigned to take advantage of new technology as well as address customer feedback and changing behaviors. While Citi previously offered a separate app for use with the Apple Watch, this is the first time the smartwatch experience has been integrated into the bank’s main app.

The luxury retail environment is undergoing critical changes, making it is essential for retailers to focus their attention on enhancing the in-store experience, according to a new report by Unity Marketing. Affluent consumers increasingly prefer to shop online, and for traditional retailers to compete they will need to offer more specialized and personalized retail experiences. Furthermore, as affluents have been shown to have less interest in the accumulation of possessions, it is important for retailers to make stores more experiential and craft a rewarding experience for consumers.

Ratan Tata has acquired a stake in taxi aggregator Ola, making it his latest personal investment in startups. "We are thrilled to share that Mr. Ratan Tata has recently invested in Ola, in his personal capacity. While I am personally very excited about this, as a company we can now learn from the rich experience of one of the finest business leaders of our times," Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO and co-founder of Olacabs said. Olacabs calls itself India's largest aggregator of point to point and rental cabs with operations in over 100 cities and 1.5 lakh vehicles registered on its platform. Ola was …

The war between Uber and taxi drivers across Europe may be ongoing, but the outcome is a fait accompli, according to France's digital champion, Gilles Babinet. Babinet, himself a serial entrepreneur, told delegates at the Hack4Europe conference in Paris: "Think about this: an average taxi is in commercial usage 45 per cent of its time, which means that 55 per cent is just waiting for a client." "Do you know how much is the ratio of usage for an Uber car? It's 85 per cent and …

In a Facebook post, David Marcus announced the availability of Facebook Messenger based peer to peer payments to everyone in the U.S. In an update just a couple of hours ago, David Marcus also said “We now have triggers. So any amount starting with a $ is hyperlinked to the send money flow. Try typing “Send me $20″. That’s our early version of request money. On limits. They vary. But they should be high enough for most people and usages right now.”  Message from David Marcus: We’re happy to announce that Messenger person-to-person payments are now available to everyone in …

Pinterest on Tuesday officially started its foray into e-commerce. The social networking giant has started rolling out a “buy it” button on its pins on iPhone and iPad apps.  It also is launching new shop categories, including "Shop our picks," a curated selection of seasonal goods, and "Shop" for the latest buyable Pins. Pinterest first announced the feature, called Buyable Pins, in early June, and named a few partners, including Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores. In the coming weeks, “pinners” will have access to 30 million products available for purchase from a variety of retailers, including Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom, along with …

In a move to diversify its business, Silicon Valley-based payments and financial services company Square Inc. has added payroll services for small businesses to its roster of products. Founded in 2009, Square markets software/hardware products & services like the Square Register and Square Reader. The Square Reader is a small plastic device which plugs into a smartphone or tablet and reads magnetic stripes. It then uses the Square Register app service which allows individuals and merchants in the United States, Canada and Japan to accept card payments on their smartphones or tablet computers. On the iPad version of the …