I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts that small, hand held devices could have a real impact on travel.

But writing from the persepctive of following the French travel and tourism industry, many of the official sites struggle to work on a normal PC never mind an iPhone or G1.

There again there is nothing stopping individuals and companies from hooking into the growing appeal of such devices and look to hook into search driven traffic.

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I know exactly what you mean – my iPhone has fundamentally changed the way I travel. Whilst on the road to Russia I used the N95 to record video diaries for the family back home, and the ‘find things near’ me function on the maps was very useful.

Using the App Store on the iPhone though I’ve found shed loads of travel apps, from flight status checkers, to mapping apps and information providers, right through to apps that allow me to update the blog from the road, read reviews of locations, and also things like phrase books and dictionaries.

The thing that they’re all missing right now though is a central place to work out which ones are good and which ones less so.

I’m not convinced that the G1 will offer any more compelling apps than the iPhone or the N95 – and certainly not because it’s based on an Open Source platform – both the N95 and the iPhone have very large and compelling developer platforms – and at least the iPhone has an element of standards checking before the apps are launched – that for me is much more compelling than a platform that just allows anything to be published regardless of whether it works or not.

I stopped using Nokia Apps not promoted by Nokia themselves due to the silly amount of them that crashed my mobile.

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[tongue in cheek] Is the G1 any good for viewing in-flight porn? [/tongue in cheek]

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I seem to be getting a lot more calls these days. Many from the back of taxis or from busy airports or on the hoof from my business travel clients. Though many use a lot of these applications post booking, such as infotriever (as used by QANTAS and Amadeus) but for sorting out arrangements, a call is often preferred.

I will get a call from a taxi saying “I am going to miss the flight, get me on the next one” or “I need to go to Brussels next week” from these short, snatched messages, I know who they are, what they want and what to do. So far, no technology can do that.

At the risk of being branded a Luddite, there is a lot to be said for that marvel of technology, even though it has been around for a few thousand years, called a human being.

I can understand that with leisure travel one has the time to assimilate all the technology, but a busy chap or lady twixt meetings, etc. does not (save, perhaps, for the text message) always have the time to set something up and then do battle with it.

The written word, as you get with email or text, is open to ambiguity a conversation gives the opportunity to clarify. One mistake, one very small mistake, in travel can cost many hundreds of pounds so it is important to be able to clarify and indeed question requests.

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I do not like the design. Today, appearance plays a big role, because technically they are all nearly identical.

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I do some mobile phone development in my spare time (saddo!) and there is no doubt it will become more and more prominent in the futurre.

Having said, that I’m not sure what uses it holds for the Travel Industry – I think that is still very much open for debate.

1. Will people book holidays using it?
I doubt it, even I still won’t use mobiles for anything transactional, and it’s part of my job!

2. Useful for informational purposes?
Most definately. Checking flight times, booking itineraries maybe, weather forecasts, contact numbers.

We’ve checked our sites on various phones, and they all actually render the sites in a manner that is useable, however it currently involves a hell of a lot of scrolling, especially when looking at Hotel details!

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I think as Simon and others have said the ease of use is going to be all important. A phone can have al the bells and whistles but if it doesn’t do the basics right then people aren’t going to use it.

I would have thought the receipt and checking of information will lie at the heart of phones, but it’s the website publishers who enable this that will succeed.

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I agreewith the others. I would never book a flight or holiday on a mobile phone but i would want to find out information about the destination I am visiting. The problem is not the phones but the prices that these communication companies charge.

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@rohan “I would never book a flight or holiday on a mobile phone” – i remember people saying something along the lines of the following:

“i would never book a flight or holiday on the internet”.

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@Kevin
That would be the same internet that people make all their mistakes on, right?

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@murray harold – the point i was trying to make is that evolution will continue apace and despite a reluctance to book via phone now, it will probably happen. in the same that some doubted the power of the internet, but look where we are now.

i’m not sure where the mistakes element you speak of comes into this discussion.

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@ All minus Kevin:

I do agree that using a mobile application to perform transactions will cause more mistakes and problems, but I also believe that most applications offer confirmations methods before actually submitting a person’s request, meaning error is platform-independent and totally our fault. Errors don’t and won’t happen out of software mistake, but out of our own, if you allow it. The problem is, for example in computers, you are required to have a higher level of education, and a cellphone an even higher (probably). and most people don’t put in the time to become a responsible user (one that knows the platform he uses, and the methods employed to prevent errors.)

I know I always read my confirmation screen twice, and have yet to make a mistake on any transaction I’ve done. Most people have though, I admit to that, but with a little patience, education and technology improvement, cellphones will most likely be your preferred method of payment in a few years, not to mention the next greatest improvement in travel and navigation combined (gps, with a mapping system, and infinite amounts of informational db’s connected through a telecom net, on a very pragmatic GUI), working in harmony and out immediate disposition to solve our queries.

It’s like the ATT&T You Will Ad Campaign. Like kevin said, its a matter of time.

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London Users No London Tube Maps available for G1!!!

Apparently I’ve check with no success T-Mobile’s G1 Android does not have any software available at present allowing you to have the TFL London Tube Map to download onto your the G1 Phone but however I have seen it is definately available on iphone and Blackberry fones
Come on this should be standard for a iphones if the other 2 iphones can get it right why can’t G1 I do hope they can address this soon as it would be extremely useful for people travelling around London Transport system.

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