Reserving Rooms Via Mobile Phones Takes Flight

By Adam Kirby, Associate Editor -- Hotels, 7/1/2007

Veteran road warriors armed with PDAs and laptops some time ago mastered the art of booking hotel rooms while on the move without the pesky hassle having to talk to an actual person. To be fair, mobile booking has consumer benefits beyond convenience, provided the technology is secure—travelers using mobile booking no longer have to shout credit card numbers into their phones in the middle of public spaces. Although the larger traveling public has not yet caught on to mobile booking, it is only a matter of time.

Wireless technology company iMAN has launched a Mobile Hotel Reservation site in conjunction with NewYork.com that links up distribution channels in a format that fits onto a mobile phone or other small screen. The iMAN technology allows NewYork.com visitors search, view, reserve and pay securely for hotel rooms on their mobile wireless device, without downloading a special application to their phone. The company is in the process of adding capability to package air transportation as well. The mobile functionality will eventually enable hotel bookings for all cities of the United States, once additional inventory sites are brought online.

At its core, though, the iMAN technology is basically mobile-phone Web surfing. That leaves out travelers whose phones are not Web-enabled or whose carrier plan makes browsing too expensive. Enter short message service technology, more commonly known as SMS or text messaging, available on nearly all mobile devices.

A mobile company called 4Info provides Hotels.com listings via text messaging. If a traveler in the United States sends the word “Reserve” along with a city name to the number 44636—or 4INFO—a return message is sent to the phone with room rates for that city. The user can then dial the corresponding reservation number to book.

Booking via SMS is old hat for Holiday Villa Malaysia International, which has been accepting text-message reservations since 2003. Assuming users have previously downloaded an application from the Internet to their mobile device, they can book into any of Holiday Villa’s 21 worldwide properties without needing to access the Web or place a phone call.

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