Research entitled the ‘Beginning of the End of the PC Era?’ from web design and digital specialist Nucleus reveals the growth in traffic from mobile devices in January 2012 compared with August 2011 and shows luxury sites have the highest mobile penetration.

The studied carried out on 10 UK and international travel websites reveals some have witnessed a doubling in mobile web browsing over the six months with the top site generating 24.2% of its traffic from tablets and smartphones. Apple devices dominate mobile browsing taking an average share of 85.6% of all mobile browsing devices and the figure increases for luxury brand websites.

Meanwhile, browsing using an Android device has dropped in the six months although there is evidence to show those devices are being used on mass market travel sites but iOS devices still do better. Only the iPad has increased its share of the mobile web browsing market – up 12% in the past six months.

According to Nucleus the research demonstrates the need for brands to offer a good browsing experience for mobile phones and tablets and highlights the importance of optimising for touch, building in HTML 5 and using higher definition images.

Read More at TNOOZ

Dan Israel, strategy lead for the mobile practice at Sapient/Nitro, pointed out that most of the mobile traffic is coming through the smartphone, but most purchasing in mobile is done through tablets. “It makes sense. You have a larger canvas for shopping and buying,” he said.

Israel cited Sapient/Nitro research showing that 38% of consumers rated smartphones as useful for shopping compared to 56% for tablets. In a similar vein, Sheila Collins, consumer digital marketing strategist at American Express, pointed to data showing customers tend to spend 20% to 30% more on tablets than other devices.

Anecdotal findings reported in The Wall Street Journal last fall also suggested that tablet users are placing bigger orders — up to 10% to 20% more — than average shoppers on PCs or smartphones. Retailers including Macy’s, Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch all attested to seeing higher conversion rates on customers using tablets. A study in December commissioned by marketing technology firm Zmags estimated tablet shoppers would spend $325 on average during the holidays.

Read more: MediaPost

Sheen Falls Lodge celebrate their 2nd week victory at the top of the table this week.

Download the list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 27^TH January 2012)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotels influence on the twitter verse.

Weve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, weve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your @ twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

“The booking window is changing,” said Dhiren Fonseca, co-president of Expedia’s Partner Services Group. “We’ve seen a 28 percent growth in sameday transactions. This speaks to the growth weve seen in our mobile business; 65 percent of mobile transactions are happening same day and travelers are taking shorter trips. Travel is down three percent in length of stay, and guests are buying down to lower star properties.”

In addition, Expedia’s global presence has given the company an enormous amount of data on the influx of outbound travelers from the Asia-Pacific region and their digital booking habits.

“You are managing your product, trying to get heads in beds… it requires knowledge of how to navigate all these different platforms,” said Gary Fritz, co-president of Expedia’s Partner Services Group. “As mobile device proliferate, we see this is the day-to-day experience people are choosing.”

Fritz cited a 274 percent projected increase in Chinese inbound U.S. travel from 2010 to 2015, coupled with 1 trillion mobile transactions worldwide by 2015, as vital trends for American hoteliers to explore.

“If i was an entry-level revenue manager today, it would be exciting but a lot of the precepts are getting challenged,” said Fritz. “It’s just a reality. You’ve got to think about how to distribute content locally, tailor content for local channels and how to drive brand impressions through all of these channels. This is so much more complicated, but potentially more rewarding.”

Read More at HotelManagement.net

The survey found that globally, Travel brands are failing to adequately invest in mobile, despite widespread adoption of smartphones and increasing customer search queries via mobile (19.5% of search queries for hotels are made via mobile devices). The survey (released as part of EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution & Marketing Barometer report October, 2011) highlighted that overall, mobile investment globally for apps and websites had not moved with great pace during 2011 for Travel.

Investment by certain countries however did gain pace. In Europe, Germany is leading the way with 45% of respondents this autumn indicating that they now have a mobile application for their brand – an increase from just 9% back in February 2011.

China saw the biggest increase in investment with 67% of respondents indicating that they have a mobile website for their brand, up from just 30% in February.

The shift towards mobile has been likened to the seismic shift from offline to online that occurred over a decade ago. In a month that saw major travel brands such as Thomas Cook feel the impact of being too complacent about adapting to change, the survey comes as a warning to all travel brands. Those brands who relish and adapt to new consumer facing technology are the ones who will succeed over the coming years.

Read More at eyefortravel

The average adult consumer has spent 4 hours and 34 minutes each day watching TV and video on a traditional television set this year, up 10 minutes from last year, eMarketer estimates. Time spent with the internet and mobile phones was also up—by 7.7% and 30%, respectively—and while adults are spending less time than last year with radio and print publications, the increases to TV and digital also mean an increase in total time spent with media, to 11 hours and 33 minutes.

Mobile’s 30% jump from 2010 helped propel it past the 1-hour-per-day mark, compared to just 44 minutes with print magazines and newspapers combined.

eMarketer forms its estimates of time spent with media based on a meta-analysis of data from dozens of research sources, including survey and study data. TV and video includes any type of video watched on a traditional TV set, while all online video activities are included in the internet category. Time spent with each medium is averaged across the whole US adult population, not just users of the respective medium. Time spent with each medium also includes all time spent with that medium, regardless of multitasking, so an hour of watching TV while simultaneously on the internet is considered an hour of each activity.

Read More at eMarketer

Hoping to draw impulsive buyers addicted to daily coupon alerts, hotels and online travel agencies are introducing a flurry of new specials and features targeting those who book a room locally on the day of the stay. They include couples celebrating anniversaries; long-distance commuters working late; people without electricity; travelers whose flights are canceled; and suburban deal seekers who can’t resist a 30% discount at a fancy downtown hotel. Orbitz, which launched its Orbitz-Hotels app for iPad in the summer, says 65% of its mobile bookings are same-day reservations (vs. 14% on desktop). Orbitz will also launch a redesigned mobile website next week that will include a new tonight-only deals feature.

Hotel Tonight, an app featuring daily deals from hotels cutting prices by at least 20% for the night, is one of the most popular travel apps, with more than 800,000 downloads. Priceline launched its Tonight-Only Deals feature in October, selling discounted deals from hotels that disclose their names. (Priceline’s name-your-price auction doesn’t reveal hotel names.) About 60% of mobile bookings are for the same day, says John Caine, Priceline’s senior vice president of marketing. “There’s a certain portion of travelers who don’t like planning,” he says.

“In Connecticut, more than half the people were without power for days and days” after an October snowstorm, says Priceline CEO Jeff Boyd. “We literally watched the hotel reservations light up on our mobile devices.”

The hotel-tonight trend is part of a broader buy-now shift in the economy enabled by mobile technology. But hotels, especially independent properties, are willing to participate in this new sales channel because about 40% of rooms on average go unsold each night. Hotels also like the feature because they don’t have to commit a minimum number of rooms, says Sam Shank, CEO of Hotel Tonight.

“Technology is making it easier to fulfill the need that’s been out there,” says Andrew Kauffman, vice president of e-marketing at Marriott.

Read More at USA Today

Android users who download the latest version of Google Maps from Android Market will now be able to locate themselves inside airports, malls and big department stores that partner with Google and share their floor plans. Google Maps will offer the familiar blue dot that shows where a user is surrounded by a very rich representation of indoor spaces.

Google said users will be able to see specific maps for each floor they visit with their location accurate to within 5 to 10 meters. Users will see not just stores but also points of interests such as airport gates, ATMs or bathrooms represented on the screen. They can also apply familiar gesture inputs like tilt and twist to interact with the maps in 3-D.

Some of the early launch partners for indoor maps include Macy’s, Ikea, Bloomingdales and Home Depot and airports in San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle and other cities. Google is releasing a self-serve tool for venue owners to upload their floor plans to Google for inclusion in Google Maps.

Google Maps product manager Steve Lee said the addition of indoor maps is the most significant addition to Google Maps this year. He said Google took a while to refine and optimize its location technology, which leverages GPS, cellular and Wi-Fi signals to help determine a person’s whereabouts. He said the process had to be optimized for indoor use and to be able to identify which floor a user is on, which changes what map they see. Ultimately, it fills out the promise of Google Maps, making it more useful to consumers.

Read more at:  gigaom.com

Still don’t have a mobile compatible website? You’re not alone. In fact, only about 5% of online businesses have a mobile compatible website. The best way for you to stay ahead of the curve, would then be to have a mobile compatible website. So, remind me again why you don’t have one yet?

No doubt about it, not having a mobile compatible website heading in to 2012 is going to hinder your business growth capabilities, so here are five good reasons you should have a mobile site going into 2012.

Mobile Screen Size

Let’s be honest, the size of a smartphone screen is nowhere near the same as a tablet, laptop, or desktop screen. In fact, smartphone screens are downright small comparatively. If you direct mobile users to your main website, they are going to have to do a whole bunch of scrolling and zooming to make the site readable.

If consumers find your website looking like the picture on the left, it will take them much longer to find the information they are looking for, it can deter them from being a potential customer. Sites essentially should be a miniature version of your main website and designed with the mobile user in mind. Meaning, navigation needs to be easy and something that can be done with the touch of a finger. By having a mobile friendly website, consumers can find the information they are searching for faster and easier, given the minimal screen size.

Faster Load Time

Let’s be honest, consumers are all a little impatient. We all want to see things load fast. A mobile compatible site is going to load light-years before the desktop version. Think of the mobile version of your site as the slimmer version of your main website, it’s going to load much faster since you’ve gotten rid of the unnecessary items hogging up the space. Speed matters on a mobile site, just as much as it matters on a desktop site. I know I’ve run into this issue several times with my Blackberry; when it happens, I only wait around if it’s a necessary task to be completed, because I know then I’m going to get stuck scrolling around the page and waiting for it to load the zoomed screen.

Read the rest of the reasons at: tigglobal

Mobile is still only the third-most-popular area for travel content marketing investment expansions, however. Both social media marketing (65%) and brand content (55%) are even more likely to see increased investment.

Apps appear to be a favorite among travel companies.

In fact, the iPhone continues to get the most love from the 350 travel organizations included in the research, performed in late September. Seventy-nine percent of travel marketers are planning to develop iPhone apps in 2012. Almost half of these companies already have an iPhone app in the field, and another 30% will support the platform.

Similarly, 39% have an iPad app and another 36% plan to support one in the coming year. When it comes to the increasingly important mobile Web, the Frommer survey finds that 42% of travel organizations currently support a presence, but 32% plan to.

Read more at mediapost.com